Personal Electronic Communication.

          These are the buzzwords for the coming decades – whether you capitalize them or not.  Actually, you can hear them buzzing and beeping and whistling and ringing everywhere you go.  The air is filled with assorted frequencies of electromagnetic waves radiating in all directions, missing your spleen by mere microns – some of them even passing through your head!

          This appalling situation can be traced back to two people…Adam and Eve.  No!  Though I guess we can blame pretty much everything on them if we could keep from having a literal and religious argument, that’s a little farther back than I meant to go.  The people I was thinking of were Alexander Graham Bell who, with his assistant Watson (a professional assistant who formerly worked for Sherlock Holmes) invented the telephone, and Marconi, who invented those little elbow noodles and also had something to do with radio…I think.  I believe it was the military that first united these two ideas into wireless communication.  For this reason, early on in this technology you were bombarded by radio waves generated mostly by military messages.  You may have heard these unrefined signals in your head by means of a paranormal phenomenon called, um, bio-electromagnetic reception, a known scientific effect, which I just made up.  It’s possible you mistook these messages for an announcement over the speaker system in one of those big department stores.

“Attention Maj…(garble, garble) systems int…(fuzz, pop) arg lnt ez fangle…over, thank you.”

          While this may be similar to what you heard in your head, the high-tech, state of the art electronic equipment used by the military at that time enabled the trained soldiers receiving the communications to hear, well, pretty much the same jumbled message.  The Signal Corps, however, sent these soldiers through intense screenings, serious testing and in-depth training to enable them to understand these messages.  This training program was so effective that it is employed today by fast food restaurants in teaching their employees to understand orders at the drive-through window.

          Thanks to these and several other technological advancements, such as additional expendable cash, you are today walking around in an atmosphere teeming with Captain Kirk-ular communication on all levels of society.  Calls ranging from top-level, multi-gazillion dollar business dealings to queries on the status of the monthly economic assistance check.  Many people don’t even have telephones, or, as they call them now, “land lines,” at home.  Because of that fact, you can no longer tell your boss you were outside, or you ran to the store or you couldn’t answer his call because you were at a PTA meeting and he can expect you to answer his call at any time of day. 

`Well, thank you very much!

And where can we aim our gratitude?  That would be the mobile or cellular phone, the precursor to the “communicator” used only by the “Federation” on Star Trek because the intergalactic service plan costs so much that only the government can afford the monthly fees.  The word “cellular” is a technical term which means that eventually, through dealer incentives, lower costs and a trained and knowledgeable sales force, even small one celled creatures like amoebas and various other intelligent microscopic organisms will own and operate these communication devices.  Unfortunately the development and mobilization of this area of science has also put wheels on other aspects of personal electronic communication.  The answering machine, for instance, has become a part of the service plans supplied by the cellular service carrier (a small service charge may apply per answered call – or after a base number of calls – or per month – or on any message received from cellular phones in AMC Gremlins – or…).  Yes, through modern technology you can now be out even when you’re not in. 

“I’m sorry, but Bob is at home now.  If you leave your name and number with a brief message, Bob will return your call the next time he’s gone.”

          Of course, you can use this service to screen your mobile calls the same way you used to when you only had a phone at home.  With this system there will soon be phone solicitors calling to sell you tires, lube jobs, new cars or even a better cellular plan…provided you give them the names and license numbers of all the friends and relatives you regularly call.

          Another phone pheature which took to traveling is the ignore idea.  This is more commonly and euphemistically known as the “hold” button.  Either way, you’re still being ignored.  The positive point to this is for the first time while on hold you can have something to do besides stare at a sink full of dirty dishes or look at the pile of paperwork on your desk.  Now you can dodge in and out of traffic at interstate speeds, a phone stuck in your ear with one hand, the other hand on the wheel and the cruise control set fast enough to get you to next week by tomorrow.  Oh, you could use the hands- free speaker phone mode, but the sound quality is somewhat lacking …to the point that no matter what you say, the person on the other end of the connection hears:

                     “bzzzzzt…ould you like fries with that?”

In addition, you can send a written message if you don’t want to actually converse with the people you’re talking to.  This is also a wonderful complementary option to other social networking options such as Facebook, MySpace, LookAtMe and HoldMyBeerAndWatchThis.    I believe it is spelled “d-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-e-d  d-r-i-v-i-n-g” by the insurance and law enforcement communities.

          Perhaps cellular headsets should be more available for motorists who spend a great deal of time on their phones.  This would allow them to place both hands on the wheel while they weave in and out of traffic accidents involving people who dodge in and out of traffic at interstate speeds with one hand…well, you get the idea.  Of course, it is entirely possible that these people fell asleep at the wheel – probably while they were on hold at cellular phone rates waiting for their party to answer, but that’s just a guess.