ring, ring........it's for you

still remember the good old days when you don't have this nagging troublesome bothersome thing by your side? that you are free to roam, without a care for time or place? that you don't need to have a thought for any other? and no whiny spoilt mega-attention-caller noise will shrill incessantly in your ear, demanding that you drop everything on your hands and listen attentively?

i am, of course, talking about my handphone. it doesn't get any more appealing just because i just changed to a pink one. it still demands my attention at the most frustrating of times; like when i am in the bathroom, when i am just about to fall asleep, when i am in the midst of enjoying my meal. of course, it doesn't ring when i am in a boring meeting, waiting for any divine intervention to come save me from dying a very slow and torturous death. the thing is evil, i tell you.

i do remember, the good old times, when someone asked me for my handphone number and i answered, 'oh, i don't usually switch it on', and it was fine, it was acceptable. nobody shrinks from you in a heartbeat as if you are some strange alien from another planet. nobody leaves their phone on 24/7 in that era (anybody commenting that it must have been a very long time ago can consider themselves dead meat). the other day, a colleague mentioned to me that he can always be contacted, that he leaves his phone on 24/7. my immediate thought was 'so? who doesn't? what's the big deal?'. from being a luxury, it has become a necessity, a part of the human anatomy even.

so, can you live one whole day without your handphone? can I live one whole day without my phone? i gladly can, and i gladly will, if i am not being seriously reprimanded as being irresponsible for not carrying my phone around like a new-born baby in need of constant nourishment. by my own flesh and blood nonetheless. he deems it irresponsible. sigh. i didn't see that coming. it's no longer normal to leave your handphone in your room and go down for dinner. it's not normal to exist independently without your handphone for a matter of few hours. people have to be at the beck and call of others within the blink of an eye. all these must be improving communication between people by a vast margin. but yet i don't see it.

i miss the ring-free days. i miss being uncontactable. perhaps that's why i love vacationing in the u.s. of a and japan. where they have a totally different type of tele-communication system than ours and our handphones are rendered useless. but then they had to come up with 3g!!! i will seriously have to consider spending some vacation time in some remote uncivilised uninhabitated island. to escape from the evil shrilling sound of ......THE HANDPHONE!