No cellphone?
Remember yesterday how I ran into an old friend and sat down for a cup of coffee in the terminal before we split? There was a very interesting side story that happened at the cafe that I never mentioned.
Tom and I sat down at the first cafe we could find – actually it was a bar – and he ordered a diet coke and I, a coffee. As we finished up our chatting, I asked the guy at the bar – who seemed to be our age – if he could do us a favor and take a picture on my phone. You could see that something was not right. He took the phone and had the screen facing us. He asked “which buttons do I press? I do not have a cellphone. I do not know how these things work”. Just as I started saying “turn it the other way and press the big white circle on the screen”, a fellow passenger on my left offered to take the picture. And that is what we did. That is the picture you saw.
Couple of minutes later as Tom and I started wrapping up, it struck me – did the guy really say he does not have a cellphone? He probably meant a smartphone. So, I hollered at him and asked “What do you mean you do not have a cellphone?” Much to the surprise of everybody sitting around he said “Never did. Never will”. I persisted “You do not have a cellphone?”. “No sir. Just a landline. Don’t want a cellphone”.
Totally amazed, I went “Wow! We will need to drag you to the twenty first century one of these days”. And the lady on Tom’s right yelled back – “No. Let him be there”. Evidently, a lot more people think of cellphone as a nuisance factor. Just when everybody in America is thinking of getting out of landlines and have a cellphone only….
Unfortunately, we had to leave soon. I had a office meeting coming up. Tom had a flight to catch.
I am going to go back to that cafe and find that guy out. I have a lot of interesting questions for him. I am sure he has some cool stories.
If any of you go to Atlanta airport, check out Cafe Intermezzo in Terminal B (it is near the center of the terminal) and ask for Jason. You can identify him by his shoulder level hair. I have no doubt he will regale you on why he does not want a cellphone…