Cell Phones and the coming of the apocalypse

Cell phones have got to go.

I don't care how it's done really just so long as it takes place and is done before I have to buy my nine year old daughter one. Does anyone agree?

Here's my point. Ten years ago, when I left for work, I'd be driving along the road, humming to the music ( I'm old now and listen to talk radio), mumbling under my breath about other drivers, or just thinking about the day that I was about to face. And then, a thought "Oh no, I left my wallet at home!" I might mutter a swear word or two and then look through my change and see if I had enough for a pop (soda for people on the East Coast and a coke for you Southerners) and continue with my drive. Disappointing yes, but manageable. Not a problem.

Now, if I'm driving along at the start of my day and discover that I left home without my cell....well, good God! That can't happen! I'd hang a u-turn in the middle of the street and race back home so that I can grab that little baby. It's like I left a part of my anatomy back home on my kitchen counter.

And why do I feel this way? So that I can have an electronic mind control device to call my own? So that my brother can text me about things that I don't want to text about? I swear. If I'm going to have something on my possession that can control me that much, it had better turn me invisible too and get me in contact with the dark lord Sauron himself.

I used to love the History Channel. However, now all they have on are shows about the coming of the new apocalypse in 2012. First, we have to live through Y2K ( remember that one?) and the horror and destruction that world was going to face because my computer didn't know it was the year 2000 and not the year 1900. Now, some Meso-American native group that disappeared into the jungles of Central America around 700 ad., is telling me that I won't get to see my kids graduate from high school because their calender stopped at the year 2012. Then, it's that's not enough, Sir Isaac Newton is getting on this prediction thing and is betting that we won't make it past 2060 because of his innate ability to interpret the bible of all things.

Seriously. The History Channel needs to start showing old documentaries about German Panzers running over Poland or the history of beer making again. You know. Cool stuff. Granted, the Mayans were pretty out there for their time but I'm guessing that if they couldn't see the end of their own civilization, then predicting the end of the world is pretty much a stretch for them. Maybe they just ran out of room on their calender? Mine only goes up till next year after all.

As for Newton, it's hard to argue with the man who wrote the Principia and the Laws of Motion. Still, the guy did work with a lot of mercury in his day and as Lewis Carroll's Madder Hatter shows us, that stuff does go to your brain after a while.