Cell Phones in the Supermarket

Cell phones are like digestive gas attacks. Everybody has ‘em but they are disgusting, impolite and obnoxious when not handled properly and with respect to others.

Use of cell phones in today's society stinks to high heaven.

Emergencies are okay. Both with gas and cell phones.

Supermarkets, banks, restaurants and driving a car are not emergencies except in very rare cases.

Cell phones have their time and place. The vast majority of users can't get either right. As most of you pholks know, I think cell phones are great--but only when really needed.

Supermarket shoppers are fast approaching the level of mall goer-cell phone abusers. Since that level already is pretty low, the degree of common sense, IQ level and courtesy of the supermarket cell brats is headed downhill at a faster pace than any Olympic downhill racer you'll see in the next couple of weeks.

What's even more appalling is that the number of adults aged 30 to 50 are getting as bad, if not worse, than the teens and young "adults" who roam the malls and supermarkets of our great nation.

This Christmas I spent about two hours total shopping. I didn't physically attack a single cell phone user, kept my verbal abuse to a minimum and gave less than two dozen disgusted looks to the 250 to 300 cell users who crossed my shopping paths in those two tense hours.

After all, it was Christmas and everything gets crazy in the final hours of shopping. I had to cut the obnoxious "callers" some slack. The Christmas spirit and all. I am proud.

But the holidays are over. Done. Gone. Past. Outta here.

I will attempt to control my rage and concentrate on only supermarket cell phone anuses.

I do like to supermarket shop and have assumed leadership of that chore with a smile. Being first in grocery shopping, taking out the garbage and cleaning the toilet might make me a triple threat husband. I'm second in laundry and tied for first in dish washing.

But this supermarket thing is about to lead me to drastic measures.

What the hell ever happened to shopping lists? Ninety percent of the time I use one as a starting point at least. But nobody else seems to use them. Maybe they are too dumb to read. But with so many people in shirts, ties, business suits it is doubtful that's the case.

Sure you hear a lot of "we ain't got no popcorn and no milk" or "I seen some microwave popcorn that looks really good," but that poor grammar is so common place it hardly registers any more.

But damn-it I have a hard time when eight out of ten shoppers in a narrow isle are yakking on the phone when I'm trying to find the best deal on toilet paper or a tomato with just the right feel. And trying to read the small print on some labels is especially frustrating when four different one-sided conversations are filling the yogurt, butter, cheese and frozen biscuit area.

Last week I saw a professional looking guy in the store and the jerk was on the phone all over the store. It was a good twelve to fifteen minutes. He made several calls before I finally got to the check out stand. Then he was standing at the end of an isle dialing and waiting for yet another call. He wasn't holding a list. He was a good sized guy but I gave him a harsh stare and said in a conversational tone, "get a list." The stare and my words didn't hit the mark because the clod was looking out in space with the cell phone to his ear where it stayed until I left the store after a brief conversation with the veteran clerk who checked my groceries. When I pointed the jerk out to the clerk and told him how irritating it was to shop with so many cell phones going off around us, the clerk gave an agreeable nod. He then noted than many times the shoppers in his check out stand don't get off the phone the whole time during the check out and bagging of their purchases.

I haven't done anything rash---yet. But I do have a couple of maneuvers to get my point across. The first time I get a chance I'm going to drop a few "extra" items in the cart of some cell user who is so obsessed with his or her call and isn't paying attention to anyone else.

It would be great to see how mister or misses cell phoner explains an early pregnancy test kit, two pounds of turnips, three quarts of butter milk, a package of anchovies or maybe denture cream to the spouse, mother or roommate.

Of course that is just one of my payback plans. I'm working on more subtle plans and let me tell ya, it's a gas.

---

The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.