Skip to main content

Put Down The Phone. Or, That Text Just Cost Me 150 Dollars.

"The waiting is the hardest part. "
-Tom Petty 



Sometimes it just can't wait. Sometimes you just need to find out something right now. Normally I'm not the type of person who has to answer a text instantly. Usually I can stave off my curiosity long enough to at least reach a traffic light. One hundred fifty bucks isn't something to wave off. I know that much in my life. Apparently I forgot that today. I got pulled over for "unsafe driving " as my phone was in my hand when I was in motion. I wasn't on it and I wasn't texting I was putting it on the seat from in my pocket. But the unmarked police car didn't know that so o got pulled over. I'm going to pay it and get it out of my life as soon as possible because it is just one of those things. But it got me thinking about driving and texting and the need for instant gratification. So dear readers I'm going to tell you a story. 
Once upon a much more enlightened time we had conversations with one another. In these conversations we had to formulate opinions about various topics such as which game system was better (Nintendo) or who which show was cooler 90210 or Saved by the Bell (bell duh) or what soda is the best (mountain fucking dew I swear to god if you didn't know these things already....) we didn't have the stupid internet to turn to and source some dumb ass buzzfeed article (video) or Reddit post. We had to think and go on our experience and then if we got desperate enough ask our parents. These days you want to know what Led Zeppelin album is the best (physical graffiti) then you can just google it and nine trillion idiots will say zeppelin two. When I wanted to find out what Motörhead album Killed by Death was on I had to go to a record store and find the album myself. What a joke it was to find out after buying a best of compilation that it was released as a single only and I had wasted my time. But the best part is I hadn't wasted my time. I looked through the albums and took a chance on a couple and still have my original copies of Overkill and no sleep till Hammersmith which you should also listen to. My point is information took time to gather. You had to work for it and it made it more valuable. But it also helped us develop patience. Now you can google anything. Go ahead. Try it. Google cats chasing old ladies with nunchucks. I'm sure, besides the inevitable porn, you'll at least get a meme or a photoshopped picture of someone's grandmother being attacked by a ninja cat. The internet has given us so much. And before anyone says Armand your blog is on the internet I realize that. It's made it so I can communicate with people who I normally wouldn't have been able to reach and I'm thankful. But there's the point of instant gratification that has to be addressed. Maybe we should learn to curb our need for getting it all now. Go back to wanting to put in some effort and time and hunt down what it is that we really need. Get your head out from behind that six inch screen and into the real world again. So many of us meander from minute to minute looking at so much useless crap online. Memes are for the record fucking stupid. Like that gorilla one. Who the fuck is harambe? I have asked my brother about it and he just gets mad. So I ask him all the time. We're so impatient. Information is so easily accessed that we've grown accustomed to getting everything by the time it is requested. Or even worse you get caught in something considered slower than you should be. Like watching old people type on a computer or my cousin John try to do two digit multiplication in his head. Have you called someone recently and gotten the just text lecture? Exactly. Impatient people are annoying and they're the majority now. But the impatience is almost genetic now. It floats through the air and permeates us all. We want to soak in all this stuff and just know. Knowing stuff is cool but learning stuff is better. Learning means it's ingrained and become a wrinkle on the ol brain. And we always want to be nice to our brain. So, bringing me back to my original point, don't text and drive. It's not safe and it costs you money. The cop isn't a dick for catching you. You (and I for that matter) did something wrong and got caught. That's the tough shit rule. Like when you're in charge and something goes wrong you get blamed. Tough shit. See? In this case I was wrong and admit it so now I will part ways with 150 dollar bills. But I know one thing and that is I will not touch my phone if I'm driving again. 



That is unless someone has a really funny post for me to look at....then how could I resist? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do or do not there is no try

When I was a kid I thought I was going to be a doctor. Then I watched the movie Look Who's Talking  saw the scene where Kirstie Alley has her baby and that ended that. I was about six and my mind was very easily changed. From that point on I started to make a lot of choices that I questioned. In kindergarten we had a bear that each of us would take for a week and care for. When the week was over we would give him (the bear was male, I peeked between his legs) something to remember us by like a hand colored picture or a leaf from the yard. The school year went by and I never got my chance to take care of the bear. When June approached and I being fully aware that there wasn't a whole week left asked my teacher, a wonderful man who I think of to this day, why I didn't get a chance his answer was simple: because you get to take him for the entire summer Armand. Now, most kids would see this as a huge opportunity and something to be excited about. I get to watch this bear all ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Find Your Happy Place. Or, Taking Time For You.

"The Best In The World At What I Do." -CM Punk When 2015 became 2016 I made a resolution just like so many others. It wasn't to lose weight or try to stop smoking. I promised myself that I would try something new every month. Not become a yes man with a yes year but rather take one risk or try something that I had always wanted to do. I started out small. Going for a walk in the evenings for January ( yes I know that's stupid to do in winter). Cooking at home in February. Bought a new guitar in march and said I would practice every night like when I was in college and high school. Honestly most of these things have stuck and it feels good to have a new outlook and new stuff to do in my life. The one that really made me feel different was June. That's when I began to paint.  I put this piece together and I haven't been able to stop since. Painting is something I had wanted to try for the longest time (oh oh oh oh for the longest time) but had never...
Post a Comment
Read more

Everybody hurts. Or Don't Hideout in Your Hobbit Hole

The other day I had lunch with a friend of mine. She was talking about how she feels like she's treading water and swimming in circles all at the same time. Her life doesn't feel like it has purpose and she wants to run away from where she is. I listened to her as she told me her issues and concerns and if I'm being honest I feel a lot of the same things she does. I feel like giving up hope just as she told me she does. I have felt like my life was a rich full fucking waster and that what I do is meaningless. But I also realized that most people seem to feel that way. Everybody hurts and that kind of sucks. I prefer to think that it's a select few but the more I talk to others the more I realize that life just kind of sucks all the time and there are random dashes of pleasure sprinkled in between. As wonderful as that all sounds there is a glimmer of hope. Hope that we shouldn't let go of. Hope that we need to cling to but not in the white knuckled kind of way like...
Post a Comment
Read more