I was waiting for a fight the other night and a watch demonstration broke out.
OK, it wasn't nearly as ominous as it sounds. A friend and I were at a local establishment, waiting to watch the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao boxing match when we noticed one gentlemen at our table had a new "smart" watch.
It seems this watch has more features than a 16-screen cineplex. It can connect to the Internet, update your schedule, start your car and allow you to send text messages and emails. Apparently, it can also tell the time, but that didn't really appear to be the point.
It can also serve as your cell phone, which gives you the option of talking into your wrist in that cool way Secret Service agents do when they're protecting the president. Or, as we've learned, determining when happy hour starts.
As it turned out, the watch was far more interesting than the fight (but not as interesting as the Kentucky Derby, so my Ring Lardner "Throwback to a Time When Boxing and Horse Racing Ruled the Sports World" Saturday wasn't a total bust.).
But it did bring me to a conclusion that is equal parts exciting and terrifying. We are at the start of an era in personal communication that will carry us to levels of contact that are, frankly, the stuff of science fiction dreams.
And despite that, my wife still won't be able to get hold of me.
All right, that's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, she will be able to get hold of me. At least she will after she has called my cell phone repeatedly, back-to-back, for 15 minutes. And she has texted me. And she has emailed me. And she has done the entire thing all over again until her fingers bleed from dialing and she's hoarse from "urgently expressing" her feelings in a series of voice mails we'd rather not play for the children. Or the authorities.
Of course, when she does get hold of me, I'll be pulling into the driveway on a return trip from the store, where I was when she remembered the last thing she had to have and started trying to get hold of me.
That may explain why I'm seldom greeted with the enthusiasm you'd think a trip to the store on a Saturday afternoon would warrant. I mean, I went all the way there and back. Now you want me to actually get something?
As unrealistic as that might seem, I've learned over the years, that, for the sake of general harmony, I shouldn't be too free to bring up this flawless logic. Instead, the far safer course is to fall back on the Lovely Mrs. Smith's latent distrust of all technology and blame my lack of responsiveness on forces of nature and science that conspired to render my cell phone useless when she tried to contact me.
So, whoever is responsible for solar flares, I want to thank you. They probably saved me from any number of beanings with frozen food products or whatever else was handy. Because if there's anyone who spends less time on the Science Channel than me, it's the Lovely Mrs. Smith. And if you don't know what something does, you can't say it didn't do that.
Now between you and me, the actual problem is threefold. Fold No. 1 is the fact I can't hear, which is compounded by the fact I tend to turn off the ringer on my phone and forget to turn it back on. And phones generally work best when you actually know to answer them.
Fold No. 2 is I tend to, well, consider the universe and the bigger picture a lot. OK, I daydream. That means, most of the time, I'm not exactly paying attention to much beyond basic traffic symbols and cloud formations. Hey, the ramifications of Seattle's Day Three draft picks and Arkansas' bowl options aren't going to think themselves out.
Fold No. 3 is perhaps the most personal of all, bordering on Too Much Information. On weekends, I tend to carry my cell phone in my back pocket, and, apparently, my rear end isn't sensitive enough to detect a phone's vibrations.
If my father is be believed, I also can't tell it from third base or a hole in the ground. Not sure what that has to do with telecommunication, but it certainly sets the stage for where we are now.
So, I think the only answer for me is to get one of those super-duper Dick Tracy watches. That way, when my wife calls me, I'll feel a gentle vibration on my wrist and know she's trying to get hold of me.
Or, I'll just assume my arm has fallen asleep and I'll start flailing it about, trying to get the feeling to return.
There it goes again! I must be sleeping wrong. I'll just ignore it and it will probably go away on its own.
Commentary on 05/08/2015