Letter: Waxing poetic about the problem with cellphones
I own a cell phone, but not a smartphone — it’s a fliptop. I noticed at family gatherings this past holiday season that nobody but me was actually looking up and engaging in face-to-face conversations. In other words, I wound up talking to myself. Hence, the following (with apologies to Robert Lewis Stevenson and his poem “My Shadow”):
MY CELLPHONE
I have a little cellphone that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of it is more than I can see.
It never leaves off ringing — calls from marketers insistent
That I buy their products NOW, this is very very instant!
It hasn’t got a notion of what cellphones ought to do.
It pocket-dials a dozen folks right out of the clear blue.
With ev’rybody texting me I am at my wits end;
I don’t reply to them at all — I never do hit ‘send.’
There’s no one now to talk to, cuz they keep their phones alert
For apps and games, and sometimes all the young ones do is flirt!
I think that I shall toss my phone into the nearest shed
And stay home a-sleepin’ with a pillow ‘neath my head!
Tim Torkildson, Provo
