Our Smartphone Is An Infernal Device

Now I understand the urge to smash and destroy

How many times have characters in films thrown their cell phones against a wall or on the pavement?

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Even worse than the supermarkets that constantly rearrange the aisles, our android beast changes things without asking us. There are many times we can’t even locate the “accept” or “decline” when the thing rings. We almost always miss an incoming call. Please don’t offer me stuff via a little white box full of black squiggles.

Google is constantly pestering us with nonsense. We don’t do games. We don’t text. We don’t frequent social sites with the Beast. I don’t even enjoy talking on the phone. Even as a teenager, I hated communicating by telephone; it made my armpits sweat and still does. I realize this makes me a borderline Luddite, but all I want is to be able to answer or call out without raising my blood pressure.

I’ve started a small notebook, and one of the first entries was a limerick inspired by the Beast:

• More than 2 years of smartness

• Technology is heartless

• I liked my life fine

• With just a land line

“Mer-cell” (Ink and markers on paper)