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| Suburban Commandos Spring 2001 Ok, what the hell is up with all the walkie-talkies? Did I miss the notice about some sort of suburban war? Are we all on some sort of special mission? Have we been watching too many Stallone movies? So there I am at the mall, strolling towards Hallmark, when what do I see, but a 60-year-old woman firing commands into a walkie-talkie. And then, as the absurdity of this image hits me full force, I become aware that I am practically surrounded by people on walkie-talkies. What the hell is going on?? How absolutely annoying!! Who the hell wants to have that much contact with people?? What could be so important that people must constantly run around with that thing attached to their lips? Who are they talking to? What are they saying that must be communicated as if they are deep in the trenches of Vietnam?? So now I am acutely aware of this walkie-talkie problem, so of course, I notice it everywhere. Some scuzz-bucket in the grocery line, dressed in dirty shorts, a tiny tank-top barely covering his beer gut, gold crap strangling his neck, yammering away on his walkie-talkie, I am sure, to his loser friend waiting in the car. At the gas station, some yuppie in dark glasses, talking and looking around, as if he's looking for the enemy or something. They're everywhere: restaurants, in line at the theaters, in the cars next to me. Which all comes back to my theory: people are assholes. They are not saying anything, nothing is going on, just that they have to piss their money on little gadgets so they can look cool strolling around and pretending they're G.I. Joe. That's all. It's no deeper than that: a desperate need to call attention to themselves, to scream at the rest of us, "Look at me! See how cool I am with my little walkie-talkie! See all the cool people I talk to!" And you just know that they're not talking about anything of substance. You can tell from their demeanor that it's gossip, or a fight, or the boring details of every single second of their sad lives. Just crap, nothing but stupid, pretentious, superficial crap. What the hell is wrong with being alone sometimes, and not talking to anyone? Or how about talking to the people next to you? Are we this insecure that we are depending on these things to keep us connected to everyone in our lives, lest we miss something, lest we, God forbid, have to come face-to-face with our own selves? You know what the saddest part is? We live in an age where we have every means of communicating. And yet just because we have so many ways to communicate, it doesn't mean there's any actual communication going on. Over and out. |
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| Image copyright DC Comics 1979 |