Technology or Man's Desire to Kick Himself in the Ass

Technology is an amazing thing. Scientists and inventors are constantly coming up with new ideas and new things to make our lives better. Some of the time these things are luxury items that just make existence a little nicer, sometimes they're things that make life easier to live, and sometimes they are amazing breakthroughs that we don't know how we ever lived without.

The problem arises when society changes in such a way that there is no way for us to go back to the way we lived before. When our amazing new technology fails us and we find ourselves scrambling to make do. Some times this isn't that drastic. If our fancy new television breaks we usually still have the old one to fall back on, unless of course we have already given it to a friend who doesn't even have a crappy one. But, as far as it goes, we can live without a television.

Last year when I was in Jamaica for my wedding, I remember sitting out on the balcony where we were staying with a laptop every morning trying to pick up the wireless internet connection that would fade in and out. After two weeks in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I was ready to come back to Wisconsin's frozen tundra where I had a decent internet connection. (And a television for that matter)

But all that's really small beans when compared to the pox that cell phones have become. When was the last time you tried to use a pay phone? When was the last time you even saw a pay phone? May the heavens have mercy on those that can't afford a cell phone and need to make a call. Even worse, you have a cell phone and something happens to it. If you happen to break the video screen, like I did to mine, suddenly you have all kinds of problems. Relatively minor is not knowing who's calling you. Which can be handy if your playing sick from work or accidentally gave your number to someone you don't really want to talk to. Far worse, however, is losing all your phone numbers. The convenience of a cell phone has been replaced with the archaic practice of numbers on little scraps of paper. Little scraps of paper that are easily lost. And if you want to get the damn thing fixed, you have to mail it in and wait for it to be sent back.

Hopefully you won't need it in those couple of weeks because I heard pay phones are pretty hard to find.