Saturday, July 19, 2008

Talking hands

Why do people "talk with their hands" when on the phone? I mean, the other person can't see what you're doing with your hands (I know, someone's going to mention video-phones - but I'm talking about plain old phones where it's voice-only communication). The other day the lady behind me, driving down the road, was holding her phone to her ear with one hand and mainly talking - occasionally driving - with the other. I mean really... that's not only wasteful of energy (why do something if it's not doing any good? talking with your hand while on the phone? no one's benefitting from it, you're just wasting energy; did I mention I'm kind of lazy? besides... you'll create more body heat by the extra motion, which in turn heats up the atmosphere around you, which in turn spreads, and suddenly you're an instigator of global warming!), but dangerous as well (fortunately there were no accidents during the time that I was in front of her; don't know about afterwards, but I was praying for her - and especially those around her - safety).

This sparked a brief discussion in our car of "talking with your hand" - I suggested that to do so you should pull your sock off your foot and create a sock puppet to hold up to your phone. That would really be talking with your hand.

--- subject change warning! ---

Does anyone else out there like the movie Hot Rod? That is my current favorite "recent" movie (Raising Arizona is probably my all-time favorite movie ever; Noises Off is really good, as is Big Trouble and The Rock and The Princess Bride - did I ever mention that I'm in the movie The Rock? If not, ask and I'll surely share!). I'm always quoting little things from Hot Rod... like today when I said in a text message to my friend (who has borrowed the movie, so he knows what I'm talking about), "Said cool beans.. reminded me of Hot Rod.. any chance I can get it back from you sometime soon?" Except my T9 predictive text input wrote (and I failed to correct), "Said book beans.. reminded me of Hot Rod.. any chance I can get it back from you sometime soon?" My next message (after he commented on that) was full of "book" in place of "cool" (at least four occurrences). Pretty clever, eh? (Ok, I admit, not really.)

So, anyway... talk with your mouth, not with your hands, especially if there are more important things you should be doing with them (like driving). Besides... you look kind of silly. Especially if you're talking on your Blue-tooth headset, leaving both hands free, and have your hands waving wildly while (appearing to be) talking to no one in particular... :)

2 comments:

Laudio said...

I think the sock puppet idea is GREAT! But I don't talk with my hands much while on the phone, so my sock puppet may appear to be dead.

I will gave your DVD at church services today. Oops... Dratted T9!

Tony M said...

You know, (I'd already mentioned this to you), I'd left it vague to protect your identity... now you've revealed yourself. :)

Maybe it's only your dead sock puppet that wanted to watch it... you should not give in to peer pressure like that...