JayarJackson

1.                  Cell phone use is highly contagious.

While hanging out with a few friends over drinks and some dinner, one got a random text message on his phone.  As the seemingly rude response of him taking part in a possibly endless texting conversation ensued, I inexplicably felt the uncontrollable urge to pick up my phone that hadn’t given me a signal of a call or text.  I consciously fought the impulse for several minutes while ignoring the human contact of our other friend right in front of me, but eventually dove into reading old text messages and missed calls as if I wasn’t already aware of them. 

With two assholes sitting in silence and typing away on miniature computers in his face, our 3rd friend must have felt left out and alone, as he scooped up his Blackberry and randomly scrolled through communications he had also previously viewed.  In a matter of 5 minutes, the raucous conversation of the Lakers game and memories from the past disappeared and transitioned to the sound of baby clicks on our keyboards.  There we sat, 3 slaves to our phones and old text messages. 

Why do we need it??  Why does everyone seem to understand the necessity of being plugged in?  Even when someone steps a few feet away from the pull of their cell phone, everyone left feels responsible for notifying the newly released prisoner of his incoming call or text.  If there are 4 phones sitting on one table and one vibrates, someone will immediately yell, “HEY, YOUR PHONE!!!  YOU HAVE A TEXT…OR SOMETHING!”

Don’t judge, simply test it.  The next time you’re with a friend or two, pick up your cell phone and scroll away with incredible intent…I guarantee SOMEONE will feel the need to check in on their text messaging life that hasn’t progressed in the 10 minutes since they last took a hit from the technology crack pipe. 

 

2.                  Why do habitually late people set their clocks 5-10 minutes fast?

The next time you’re at a friend or family member’s house that is always late to everything, check the time on your own watch or cell phone before you take off to another timely meeting.  These people that are late to everything have been convinced that if they set their clocks 10 minutes ahead, that they will be tricked into leaving their house on time while thinking they are just lagging as usual. 

This flawed theory does not work.  The reason sluggish people don’t make dinner reservations, work appointments, or movie showings on time is because their brain tells them that a meeting at 6pm means leave at 6pm and there’s nothing anyone can tell them that will get them to do any differently.  If they knowingly set their clocks 10 minutes early, their irresponsible mind will only say, “you can leave at 6:10… remember, those clocks are 10 minutes fast.” 

Have you ever known a routinely late person that suddenly arrives on time to everything after discovering this new scheme of setting his/her clocks fast?  Hell no, they’re still always late to everything; so stop making people like me 20 minutes early when I trust your fraudulent timepiece. 

 

--JJJ

1.                  Don’t try to always call a good friend for entertainment value to pass otherwise boring time, they’ll eventually catch on, and might get offended.

As everyone in the country knows, LA traffic sucks.  “What the hell is that old lady thinking?”  “When are you gonna GO??”  “Damn, there’s an entire car length between that guy and the car in front of him, the gas pedal is on the right, fool!”  In order to avoid these uncontrollable outbursts of anger, I’ve discovered that many disgruntled LA drivers that are sick of listening to the same 5 songs on the radio have chosen to call and talk randomly with friends in order to pass the 2 hours it takes them to travel the 25 miles home in rush hour.  There is a reason that LA passed the law that restricts us from yapping on the phone without a hands free earpiece. 

Sure, we may come off as if we’re so important and handling so much business that we have to constantly talk while driving, but in reality, 9 times out of 10, that important looking person sitting on Interstate 405 in his Mercedes is talking to his best friend about the last episode of “24” or how much he hates his idiot bosses at work.  If you’re this “important person” that gets the bright idea to use your friend as absorption for your babble, make sure you try to mask it or else your calls will begin to get ignored. 

I soon found out that I was the court jester that kept a few friends entertained at one point in my life.  If they’d only attempted to hide their intentions a little better, I might have not started giving them the silent treatment. 

If the same person calls you every weekday at the same time of 5:15pm, and every conversation begins with the sound of a car’s seatbelt alarm beeping, you may want to reanalyze their affection.  When the conversation seems increasingly pointless and belabored, with uncalled for interruptions from your friend inexplicably yelling “get off my ass!” when they’re not talking to you, then they’re probably venting at the Range Rover driver that thinks tailgating will move traffic.  Once 2 hours has passed and their interest in your day immediately turns to “Ok, I’ll talk to you later,” you should understand that they’re happily home and the reason your ear is hot from a cell phone being smashed against it is that you’ve just been played.  Put on your clown hat and prepare new material for tomorrow’s drive home. 

 

2.                  The worst thing you can say about another person’s car is that “it gets you from point A to point B.” 

It seems that everyone wants to drive an impressive looking car, especially us men.  We know that it can draw attention and make us look better.  Maybe we can rev the engine, blast the stereo, and speed around a few turns just to get women to look.  Every time reliability enters the conversation, the seemingly complimentary gesture sounds more like an insult telling us how ugly it is. 

Ladies, if a guy is telling you all about his car and how it has multiple features, and has power-controlled this and that, don’t try to add to the attempted bragfest with the overused, “Well, as long at it gets you from Point A to Point B, that’s great!” 

Telling an overly car-conscious guy that his new ride simply gets him from point A to point B is like telling a woman that as long as her new dress covers her butt and her chest, it doesn’t really matter that that hotter girl with the better body is wearing the same one.


--JJJ