My phony STRING theory

I honestly don’t get all of these cell phone company commercials. Every week it seems that there are a litany of new cell phones out on the market with catchy one syllable names. Everything now is the fast, succinct, and high-tech sounding DROID, BOLD, or PRE. And yes I am well aware of the two syllable ’I-Phone’ and the up and comer ‘G-phone’ by Google too. It’s just who keeps buying all these phones since I thought literally everyone on the planet had a cell already?

I went into a Radio Shack today looking for a simple, normally-open, alarm contact switch. I’ll give you the first guess as to what I found at ‘the Shack’, and though ‘alarming’, their stock had NOTHING to do with 'ham' or alarm parts! If you guessed ‘more cell phones’ you must be a mind reader, or an inventory analyst for the ghost of Tandy past. I mean half the real estate in this dumpy strip store was dedicated to cell phones, MP3 noise-toys, and their associated clips, cases, batteries, and accessories?

Now honestly I have nothing against cell phones and trendy consumer electronics; in fact they can come in quite handy at times. But at what point do we stand up and call the Center for Disease Control and stop this cellular virus from it’s societal onslaught? You think I’m nuts, but today it’s one of my old favorite haunts, Radio Shack being transformed. But tomorrow it may be YOUR Starbucks, a local hair salon, or heaven forbid, even your Post Office that will be filled with robotic ‘POD’ salespeople!

Oh my gosh, I am sorry to be so insensitive and scare you. I admit I have never crossed over to the dark side and become a power cell-phone fanatic. In fact, come to think of it, I am not really much of a land-line fanatic either? It is probably because nobody these days has bothered to come up with a, catchy n’ sexy, one-syllable brand-name for wired phones. I’m thinking of marketing the iconic brand name ‘STRING’ – as the coolest ‘next generation’, wired phone alternative to boring ‘old fashioned ‘ cell technology. If all goes to plan, Google will buy me out before my hot new land-line phones take over the market. Naturally they will re-brand the phones as the ‘G-string’!