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I despise cellular phones.
I despise how small they are. When I've used them in the past, I have felt like Godzilla trying to pry American tourists out of a Yugo.
I despise the size of the buttons. No phone should have a face where I can simultaneously press the 1, 4 and 7 keys.
I despise the rings that people get on their cell phones. There's nothing like watching a touching scene at the movie theater and having it interrupted by the Muzak version of "The 1812 Overture" or "Bootylicious".
The only thing I despise more than cellular phones is the way people act when they are using them.
I despise watching people on the freeway alternate their speed from 35 and 120 miles per hour as they idly chat with cross-town friends on where to have dinner, only occasionally remembering that they are simultaneously operating a 800-pound mixture of steel, fire and gasoline.
I despise watching people wander through the grocery store carrying on a one-sided conversation about how the youth soccer coach is biased against their three-year old midfielder, and orchestrating the whole conspiracy with broad hand gestures while standing directly in front of the package of ground beef I wish to purchase.
I despise when people come into the newspaper office while talking on their cellular phones and tell our staff members, "Hang on, I'll just be a minute."
Hang on? Sure, how about we get you a recliner and a glass of wine while you're here, too? After all, it's apparently your den now, not our workplace.
And as much as I despise it all, I have now become that which I for so long I loathed and mocked.
Nick Georgandis, cellular phone customer.
A week ago today I became the last American citizen to buy a cellphone, ending a three-year rebellion by my better judgment that was ultimately put down by the forces of necessity.
It was a great ride, holding out while friends, coworkers and family members all bowed down to the Lords of Cellular, guaranteeing that they would never have another truly peaceful moment alone.
As I opened my shiny new Ericsson phone last week, I hearkened back to a kinder, simpler era, the spring of 1996, the first time I ever met someone who continually carried around a cellular phone.
He was an opinion columnist at Texas A&M's student newspaper and when he answered this cell phone, it was with an annoyingly cheery, "Howdy! This is Jeremy!"
We at the sports desk mocked him, sometimes openly, and especially when he gave his number out to the other 43 staffers at the paper in case of "emergencies."
Our best ploy was to call him when he knew he was in a test and whisper into the phone, "Yeah, I'm sitting four rows behind you, what did you get for No. 28?"
With the dawn of katytimes.com and my own frequent trips out of town for playoff and championship sporting events, I begrudgingly began to admit to myself that a cellular phone could be an asset to my job.
A few times, I took my father's old mobile phone from his days at Amoco with me to games, but I was often mocked by friends who, after noting the mobile's enormity, would ask if I was planning on calling in air strikes with it.
As I struggled in my resolve to remain non-digital, my support group crumbled. First my brother got one, then my grandmother, then my girlfriend.
The last straw came when my parents went wireless. My parents ... the people who employed the same VCR from 1986 to 2000, and who once waited eight years to buy a new lawnmower, had gained technological superiority on me.
A month ago, I went to a local store, intent on signing up for my own phone. I lost my nerve however, when the couple in front of me got into an argument over which color to get — silver or platinum — and the customer representative tried to sell me a model that, had I also had a large glass of water, I probably could have swallowed.
And yet, like Frodo the hobbit, I ultimately found myself unable to resist this object of great evil, and finally signed up with A T & T last week, sealing my fate with a two-year contract so I could get the \$40 rebate.
It's official: I've gone to Cell.
