I initially got the cel phone when I was in a situation of being away from a regular land line and my kids were small and in separate summer camp programs while I was working and going to school. I also commuted to a school 50 miles north of my home, through a rather remote stretch of road. Many things have changed, but I still don't talk much on the phone. I do, however, use it to keep track of my teenagers. There is no excuse for them not calling if I've asked them to keep in touch for some important reason. Since I don't make many demands like that, on the times I do, they're good about it. This weekend they're in Dallas at a convention and I want to know they're alive. One of them is to call me once a day to let me know.
I want to get one of those free bumper stickers from Click and Clack: Drive Now, Talk Later. I was nearly hit yesterday on my way to a funeral by a middle-aged woman in a minivan who was paying no attention to the Yield sign at the freeway exit that she, on the frontage road, was supposed to pay attention to. I had to slam on the brakes and shift around her, causing the cars on the ramp behind me to have to slam on their brakes. . . she never turned her head, the phone was plastered against her ear the whole time. She was very typical of the distracted drivers I see daily. Someone driving slow in your lane, causing everyone to change lanes to pass? It's not the old fart with the big ears and the brimmed hat these days, it's the driver hunkered one shoulder higher than the other, driving in a daze as they talk.
They're a necessary tool for many people, they're the phones of the future for this generations young people. But they are a hazard, no doubt about it. Mick is certainly the exception to that rule.