Bluetooth Walking

As a general rule, I'm prone to favoring a reasonably elevated and alert state of awareness, self- and otherwise, versus obliviousness. Not that I am immune to the attraction of euphoria, figurative magic carpet rides, or even plain and simple inebriation under the proper circumstances.  But out and about, especially when interacting with others, maintaining sufficient facility to pay attention and use our sensory organs to grok the surroundings just seems like what a sentient being attuned to survival ought to do.

I have conceived of or even started posts on related themes more than once.  Today's rant addresses a subset of the broader topic of the benefit of making a habit of routinely processing the available data to allow better course-charting.  You probably learned years ago that you could last a lot longer at Frogger if you monitored and anticipated the oncoming lilypads rather than make random moves.

I don't recall clicking on Publish for any of those prior efforts.

My penchant for vigorous pedestrian exercise downtown has something to do with this.  These days my pace is slower than when running was my standard outlet, but even as a walker I am quite attuned to the threat of at least collision from zoned-out sidewalk users.

Today's Close Encounter involved a self-absorbed earphone user.  He was paying little or no attention to the path more than a couple steps ahead as he approached me.  I wasn't even sure he realized we were on a collision course at a narrow point in the sidewalk.  But I had no trouble picking out his words as I dodged him, a good notch above appropriate in-person speaking volume as is annoyingly common with phone users these days:

I think we should get uhh . . .

. . .

I think we should get uhh . . .

. . .

You know - the uhh . . .

 . . .

Giving in to a spasm of generosity, maybe the expression he was grasping for had more than four letters.  Or more than one syllable.

Or maybe, realizing at the last minute another being was within hearing, a suitable euphemism for his particular contraband eluded him.  (I actually did not have the sense there was any true intoxication involved.)

In any case, it appeared pretty clear that the effort required to remember the walking mantra (left-right and repeat) precluded access to his stored vocabulary, impairing effective use of his device.  Not to mention genteel sharing of the right-of-way.

We probably all know folks who struggle with the patting-head-while-rubbing-stomach stunt.  This is worse than that when it happens on a public thoroughfare.  This zombie was a live public service announcement of the perils of phone use while driving.

Heads up out there!