On my way to an appointment yesterday I fiddled with my radio waiting at a red light. Glancing in the rearview mirror there was a young couple in the car behind me. Both were on the cell phone. I couldn't quite make out if the person in the back seat was also on the phone. It's a sign of the times I suppose. Yet to me, it feels too disconnected - which is an oxymoron since the technology is supposed to keep us more connected. And here they are sitting in the close confines of a car and nobody is talking to each other!

While I own a cell phone as well, I held out for as long as I could actually getting one. As my sons got older and began roaming around the neighborhood though, I felt it imperative that I was reachable when not home baking cookies (ok, I made that one up, I'm a horrible baker). I crumbled and finally purchased one. I don't like using it. I have the least amount of minutes possible on my plan and 9 months out of 10 I don't even use one quarter of my "allowance". I do not use it for business ever as I am adament not to be married to work 24/7. If I don't answer, it means I don't want to talk to you.

My stepfather had a cellphone in the early 80's. This thing was as big as a desktop PC and required it's own suitcase to lug around. A big, gray ugly box. But wow, we thought it was way cool. Ha! It truly was a cool thing to have but very uncomfortable, not very sleek and stylish (certainly didn't play music or show videos), yet what nobody knew was that this little invention would forever enslave us. We would be within reach of anyone with our number 24/7 around the globe. It scares me to tell you the truth. We have all this technology at our hands to communicate yet we seem to be doing less and less of it. The disjointed garbled conversations on text messaging in crazy letter combinations don't count and email is becoming a lost art since we are inundated with spam, spam and more spam (I had over 2000 of them in my junk folder last week!).

When I was 16 I had to actually get of off my behind and walk down the street to talk to my friends. We connected in real-time. Maybe those kids in the car behind me could put down the phones every once in a while and talk; try it, you might like it!