I'm a dinosaur. My wife and I are the only two adults I know who don't own a cell phone. She'd have one too if it weren't for me. I hate the damn things. I think they are a plague on society. It just blows me away that I don't know a single person who agrees with me.

Cell phones have completely changed the way we interact with each other. It's no longer possible to have a face-to-face conversation with anyone that is not interrupted by a separate cell phone conversation. The problem is, I'm the only person who even notices that there's no such thing as a one-on-one any more. Everyone I know is carrying everyone they know in a little box in their purse or on their hip.

I occasionally ask people why they have a cell phone and they all use the same word; need. They invariably have some (usually pretty rare) situation or circumstance in their busy lives in which it is exceedingly convenient, possibly even necessary, to have a cell phone. They need it. And of course, that's all it takes. They move themselves into the must-have category, get themselves a top-of-the-line phone/camera/browser combo with the "very latest technology" and a Plan with free text messaging and 9000 anytime minutes that they might as well use. Those fucking anytime minutes ought to be outlawed. They're worse than heroin. They have a 100% addiction rate. They're the reason we have all these goobers running around with their little Bluetooth headsets looking like Trekkies.

The illusion of control provided by having everyone you know in your back pocket 24/7 is incredibly alluring. It's an addiction to immediacy. An addiction for which there is no treatment, no cure, and no one actually seeking either of them. I'm only immune because I've not yet drunk from the well.