We recently hosted a quasi-invited guest. (She sort of invited herself. It was a Thanksgiving kind of thing.) We took this person downtown for shopping, out to dinner and put her up for the night. But this guest wasn’t alone. She was possessed of an uninvited interloper. It was an iPhone.
Introducing the “bamboo” sound.
DA-DA DA-DA DINT DA! Thwap!
The sound was a lot like that coffee commercial jingle only a lot more woody, with a strong, robust finish. It was like Juan Valdez had chugged too much tequila and was getting jiggy on the marimbas.
DA-DA DA-DA DINT DA! Thwap!
That sound haunts me. It chases me in my dreams, where it is the size of the Death Star and I’m running but making no progress. “The rebel base will be in range in 15 minutes.” Only, in this dream, there was no Luke Skywalker to eject a torpedo pulse into a tiny little hole and save the day. The floating space-suited black helmet dudes fired that sucker and blew me and my planet up. And guess what? The sound the Death Star beam made? It was the iPhone bamboo.
Aeeiiee!
So yeah, last night I dreamt of my own death. True story. My tombstone was even there. For some reason it was decidedly Back To The Future-esque. It read:
“HERE LIES TOM B. TAKER. DIED SEPTEMBER 7, 1885. Shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars. Erected in eternal memory by his beloved Clara.”
I wish I could say I was making this up. Sadly the artistic license is not in play. I guess I haven’t met Clara in this timeline yet. This does not portend well.
iPhones With Benefits
Wanna hang out with me?
Sure. I’ll grab my iPhone.
The procedure is cleverly simple. Every five seconds, the iPhone will make the bamboo sound. Take the device out of your pocketses. Gaze lovingly into the screen, mano-a-mano, retina to retina. Wait exactly 1.42 seconds. Then, bust out with a hearty, overly loud laugh. Remember: You want people to hear. You want them to bask in your enjoyment.
This is your clue to the world. “Check this out, bitches. I’m in on something. And you’re not. This shit is awesome. Ha ha ha!”
Put the device back in the pocketses. Wait five seconds. Repeat.
Sure, allegedly you are spending time with someone you ostensibly give a shit about. A person who is choosing to take time from their existence and spend it with you. Punish them for that. Make them pay. Teach them that no good deed goes unpunished. Do not respond to things they say, sometimes known as “conversation.” In other words, iPhone them. (I’m the inventor of iPhone as a verb.)
If possible, find an audience and make love to the iPhone. Literally. Have sex with it. Right there, in public. After all, you own an iPhone. You’re already an exhibitionist. Lovingly caress it. Kiss it. Put it on/in/under your genitalia. Jump up, jump up and twerk around. This is not a time to be shy. Then rinse and repeat. Rinse is optional.
Dinner
I don’t know about you, but after a lovemaking session with my device I have a ravenous appetite. So we did the polite thing and took her out to dinner.
Again, conversation was impossible. Every five seconds the thing would bamboo. We’d sit there on hold, as if the iPhone was a remote control and we had just been put on pause.
Then, the laughter. At least she was orgasmically delighted by what she was reading. Somehow that made it all worthwhile. It was raw, naked and primal. There was no subterfuge, no attempt at pretext. It was pure alpha dog on steroids. It was like she was saying, “I’m going to mount this thing right here, right now, and on this very table. It looks sturdy enough. Do not attempt to interfere. Siri will rip your throat out.”
Well played, millennial.
Once upon a time humans would gather to break bread and engage in primitive socialization customs. Some people choose to blame divorce or sexual orientation for the breakup of the traditional family unit. I blame the device. Try to get someone to sit through an entire meal without leaving in the middle and/or interacting with people not even there. I defy you.
We were just the schmucks picking up the tab. $85 for the four of us (three humans and one device) and the sum total of meaning from the experience was my wife and I sharing exasperation and our companion getting her rocks off.
As one who always seeks out the silver lining, I realized that this was actually a good thing. The effect was to minimize our interactions with her. And that’s a win win. I guess I owe the iPhone my gratitude. That’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.
Bamboo.
Shouts from the Abyss 
In the end, you were bamboozled. Been there and have wooden splinters in my soul to prove it.
They have lock boxes for guns. How about one for iPhones? Tell the guest they can choose: either you go in the box or your iPhone goes.
Happy Turkey Day!
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Bamboozled! I see what you did there. 🙂
Howdy, partner. Check yer phones at the door. Naw, keep yer guns, just in case someone violates the phone policy.
I drove by a restaurant last night that has a big “no phones” sign in the window. I’m going to go post-haste and get down on my knees and say, “I love you!” Regardless of the quality of the food.
Speaking of which, Happy Thanksgiving to you, too! Your name will be spoken at our table. During the thankful part. Duh.
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How kind. I’m surprised you remember who am I considering I haven’t posted anything original in forever. Reno work almost complete so I hope to get back at it next week.
Don’t hurt yourself carving the bird.
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Yes! I love it. Lock boxes for phones. This is now the time of year I most dislike. Not because of the holiday stress or farked up family issues, it’s cause of the damn iPhones, iPads, iPods, Kindles and laptops. I have a “stupid” phone. It makes and receives phone calls and crappy texts. No data plan, no camera, nothing special. For all the cooking, baking I do to help make my families holidays as special as I possibly can my reward is watching their sweet little heads bent over their fucking electronic devices (this includes you TOM)…and yes, even while unwrapping packages. I miss the old days of talking, laughing together and playing games. Ahhh, the good ole days. Thank you Steve Jobs (where ever you may rest) whether in iHell or iHeaven you have blessed my family with the gift of iIgnore.
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Here’s what you do. Get Tom to put you on a plane to some old European country. Italy, for instance. Hire a car (with driver) and travel into the deepest part of the old country where there is no cell service. Or phones for that matter. Adopt a local family. Spend Christmas with them. Discover they are filthy rich and accept their invitation to spend New Years in Sicily at their family estate. Then fly home refreshed from not hearing the sounds of devices going off constantly. Tom can fend for himself. Surely the cats would share their Fancy Feast Turkey & Gravy?
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Like always you are brilliant to a fault. In my own defense, I only pull out the device in self-defense, i.e., my life hangs in the balance. This is usually indicated by everyone else in the room playing with devices, too. Except my wife, of course. She’s in Italy.
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You are brilliant BD!
Ciao Tom
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I shamelessly admit I have an iPhone, but I will be forthright in saying that I put my phone on silence and leave it in my pocket when I am spending face to face time with friends.
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Of course you do. You are highly advanced and civilized. Alas, not all are.
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Hi ya Hot Momma 😉
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Hi girl crush!! 🙂
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Uhh, not you Tom, that “hi” is meant for Susan.
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You probably wouldn’t be surprised at the number of job candidates that PULLED OUT THEIR PHONE WHILE I WAS INTERVIEWING THEM. Needless to say — they didn’t get the job.
I think the saddest thing I see these days is a table of people out at a nice restaurant all staring at their phones.
I think that today that our undivided attention is the best gift we can give another person.
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Merry Christmas, because you’ve got it. 🙂 That was a cheap gift.
You know what? I can imagine that dipshits would do that. It’s very courteous to let you know in advance what shitty employees they would make, don’t you think? 🙂
I’ll post a restaurant review of the place down the street with the “no phones” sign. I can dig it!
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Apparently, we need a new Miss Manners to teach etiquette for the smart-device era. Is there an app for that? 😉
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Clever, and making it into an app is viciously clever. Let’s get it on Kickstarter asap. 🙂
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