All right! We have a popular downtown. Pacific Ave is the main drag. I go often to do errands and be among fellow beings. But now I’ve come to the conclusion that I am out of my element. I don’t have a cell phone. I have nothing against them but don’t have one. (The photo below shoes me talking on my flip flop.) I don’t feel the need. But…

because of the cell phone, when I walk downtown, people are somewhere else, if you know what I mean. I am a social person and often connect when I see someone, not everyone mind you!

Now don’t get me wrong, when I’m at home, I often call my friend Wendy, and am happy when she picks up, often when she is downtown, But that gets in the way of my following argument. I think there should be funding for “Cell Phone Zones” downtown. People can step off and talk, talk, talk. Cell Phone Zones. That’s it. Then I wouldn’t work on tuning people’s conversations out or in. Sometimes my mind wants to hear the other side of a story. What was so outrageous that someone said “Tell them never to do that again!” Do what? My inquiring mind wants to know. Then there is the person talking to someone 5 feet away saying “I’m right here.”

When the “cell” first showed up I didn’t know about them. I would hear people talking and think they were talking to me. I’d say “What?” But it continued. I had gotten used to all the people with mental problems (many schizophrenics ) who would be talking and I realized they weren’t talking to me. They were talking to the C.I.A. or F.B.I. Well now there are two groups of people talking to people I can’t see.

Well maybe someday you’ll see my friend Wendy on her cell phone talking to a crazy person like me in the Cell Phone Only Zone. Or maybe you’ll see me talking to Wendy, both on our cell phones, 2 feet away from each other. Or maybe we’ll both be talking on our flip flops.