Leah and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie one evening last week at a small theater in our equally small town. The movie is two-and-a-half hours long so the theater owner announced that he wouldn’t prolong his patrons’ seat time by showing previews of coming films.
Many people had arrived early to get a seat for the film, since it was only recently released and I guess many of us reasoned that there would be a big crowd. Folks were still trickling in as those of us who already had seats fidgeted and waited the few minutes before the movie would begin.
And then a funny thing happened. A man seated in front of me got out his cell phone and began playing a video game. A woman behind us used her phone to make a call, and the people to our left and right pulled out their phones too. I was a bit taken-aback that, even in these days when everyone has phones and many of us are hooked on playing with them, here were folks, about to sit and view over two hours of cinematic escapism, using their phones to fill (escape from?) the maybe two minutes of “free time.”
Geez we human beings are something.
***
The day after the movie, Leah and I were on a ferry crossing Puget Sound, headed to Seattle for an evening out with friends. The ferry trip takes about 30 minutes and I decided to take advantage of the time and call my Mom. As we chatted -- I love my mother dearly and my mind was on our conversation, not on whatever was going on around me -- I happened to glance out the window of the ferry. An incredible sunset was going on and, preoccupied as I was with the call, I nevertheless knew I had a picture to take. Mom understood when I explained about the sunset and asked if I could call her back.
Click on the picture to see it at a size that does justice to the scene. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go invent a cell phone app that helps us know when we should be using the phone...and when we should maybe put it away.
