Excuse Me, Is Anyone Listening?

A sign of the times you say? And so we go—willingly, no kicking, no scratching.

Our way of life in this country has become so convenience oriented, so simplified (or so we think), that it has become unbearably complicated, and we’re too busy to notice or even care. Keeping up with the Joneses has become akin to holding onto a bucking bronco. And along we go for the ride. No questions asked, no mercy begged, no stopping to smell the roses. No desire, it seems, to enjoy the truly simple pleasures in life. Didn’t someone once write that the best things in life are free?

What did we do in the old days, before cellular phones?

Case in point: I was on my way home from work the other day. I work in Ann Arbor, a sleepy but at rush hour bustling little college town in Lower Michigan. I rounded a corner and had to panic stop and blow my horn at a woman with a cell phone pushed against her left ear, in short, cutting off any peripheral vision she might have had. She had been parallel parked in front of an art gallery and decided to pull out into traffic with this artifact of modern technology stuck to her ear without bothering to check over her shoulder to see if any traffic was coming. When she heard my horn she hit her brake pedal to slow and glanced at me. When she was certain I wasn’t going to crease her rear quarter panel she hit the gas again, never having come to a complete stop, and coolly carried on her conversation with whoever was on the other end of the connection—her husband, or perhaps one of several kids; I imagined she had some family plan where everyone in her family had a phone, and I thought about the old days when a phone call meant you were connected to a wall by a six- or eight- or ten-foot coiled cord and there was no such thing as caller ID or call waiting. Now you can talk to anyone anywhere anytime while doing anything—including driving what amounts to a lethal weapon if your attention isn’t focused on the task. We’re so proud of our ability to multitask in this country. When I came to a stop behind this woman at the next traffic light, I got out of my truck and walked over to her window and told her that if she intended to drive in city traffic at rush hour she should hang up her phone. A number of pedestrians voiced their support for me; apparently, as has on occasion happened to me as a pedestrian in this town, they, too, have been nearly run over while attempting to cross the street. Yet the woman on the cell phone merely looked at me quizzically and promptly told me to f--k off.

Lesson learned: not only must I drive defensively, I must drive defensively for the other driver, too, and walk defensively. I can have the right of way and be in the right, but I can also be dead right.

Excuse me, is anyone listening?

I recall a colleague I used to work with several years ago. Every morning at 8:30 she’d sit down in the cubicle next to mine with her cup of coffee, and while she waited for her computer to boot up she’d call her husband to discuss important family issues such as the new dog sitter or Mom’s health—I could hear it all over the cubicle wall without trying to eavesdrop. Company time, company resources aside, I ignored the old adage that curiosity killed the cat, and one day after she hung up the phone I asked her if she and her husband ever talked at home. She quite innocently informed that no, they didn’t. They usually had the TV on. I sighed and went back to work. I was single at the time and would’ve given anything to be able to go home and have someone to talk to besides Alex Trebek and Larry King.

Lesson learned: the days of eating dinner around a dining room table and discussing the day’s events is passé. Heaven forbid we miss the latest installment of Survivor or Bachelor. Reality TV has allowed us to withdraw from our own mundane real life reality.

I cringed the first time I saw an ad on TV for a van that had a TV/VCR in the overhead console. Apparently, to some people the thought of spending quality time with their family playing 20 Questions while on vacation is terrifying. Is it any wonder kids today grow up indifferent, depressed, and unable to express themselves?

I wonder how admen can in good conscience come up with campaigns that glorify the excitement that comes from driving a 220 horsepower sports car and passing every other car on the road and deny that they don’t help promote unsafe driving habits. I shook my head the first time I saw an ad for a van with a motion detector that warns the driver of something behind his vehicle while backing up. I’m waiting for the lawsuit I’m sure will result the first time the alarm fails and someone runs over their neighbor’s kid or pet. It’s getting easier and easier to deny culpability for our actions.

A friend of mine recently had a run-in with her neighbor. It seems this neighbor’s 8-year-old son came into her yard to get a ball that had come over the fence. Well, the kid got his ball and proceeded to run for the gate. This was my friend’s dog’s cue to take chase and the kid got nipped on his ankle for his trouble. Didn’t break the skin, but the kid got a good scare. Now, 40 years ago if I had come home in tears and told my parents the neighbor’s dog had bitten me, they’d have asked me what I was doing in the neighbor’s yard where I didn’t belong. But that was 40 years ago. Today that kid’s dad came over to read the riot act to my friend. He called animal control, who quarantined the dog for two weeks, and the cops came by later, too. All this because a kid was someplace he had no right to be because he wouldn’t knock on the front door to ask my friend to retrieve his ball for him, and because the kid didn’t know better than to run from a dog—a territorial creature whose natural instinct is to chase. Superior intelligence? Just because we have opposable thumbs and self-awareness doesn’t make us smarter. Just what are parents teaching their children today? There is much a child must learn outside of the classroom, and if parents weren’t so busy denying responsibility for teaching these lessons by sitting their children in front of the TV or buying them Gameboys, our future would be in much more capable hands.

Lesson learned: in our sue-happy society, no one can be held accountable for any action they take—not when it’s oh so much easier to blame someone else.

Everything in our society has become disposable—from our cars to our homes, our computers, big screen TVs, DVD players, stereos… yes, right down to our relationships. “I don’t understand why I’m so unhappy. I have my career and my SUV and my big house, and my clothes and my jewelry. It must be this person I wake up next to every morning… the one with the bedhead and morning breath. I’ve got to find my happiness with someone else.”

Lesson to be learned: it’s easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility for our unhappiness because by doing so it becomes easier to deny responsibility for providing for another’s needs.

Is anyone listening?

These are but a few incidents that have recently touched my life. If I spent any time at all reading my local newspaper or surfing the Net, I’m sure I could find dozens more similar stories on a daily basis. But I don’t look; I’m depressed enough over what has become of this great nation of ours. Lost in what we call our daily routine but what could easily be seen as a hamster wheel, we industriously chase after our version of the American Dream—comprised mostly of material things—and cheerfully thumb our noses at France and Germany and pretty much the rest of the eastern hemisphere and wonder why we’re seen as arrogant and self-absorbed. I recently read comments from someone who expressed ambivalence toward France and all of Europe and disdain for conserving gasoline: “So long as I can afford it, why should I care about the price of gas?” Spoken like a true capitalist. Let someone else worry about conservation of the planet and her resources. And when the world’s oil supply runs out, what then? Well, we’ll leave that problem to our children or our children’s children. Our shortsightedness, like our attention span, is about as short as a dog’s.

Make no mistake, I love this country and I love the principles upon which it was founded. I’ll say it again: I love the principles upon which it was founded. But the principles have become skewed, and it goes all the way to Washington. Our representation no longer serves the best interests of the people; it has lost touch with the common people, and in return the common people have lost trust in its representation. If a people are disgruntled, look to its leadership. What made this country great was the voice of the people. Today that voice goes unheard. In time it will probably go silent. Before it does, will anyone hear its last plea?