Music ringtones ruin my day, everyday. In fact, all ringtones make me angry. Cell phones in general deserve to be thrown into a dumpster, covered in kerosene and ignited.
Who am I kidding – I would jump into that fire like it was holy. I can’t stand the bloody devices, but goddamnit I’m attached.
Sunday afternoon I sat quietly at PDX silently congratulating myself for getting a tube of toothpaste past security when a nondescript man brushed past me holding a gold cell phone. This would have meant nothing had it not been… well… mine. I looked down to where I’d just placed my trusty flip phone (it’s so adorable) and saw cookie crumbs and an otherwise empty, square table.
Confused, I shuffled through my backpack and explored my pockets only to find myself empty-handed and empty-hearted. I jumped up and narrowed my eyes at the man who’d brushed past me. In his hand she gleamed golden. I chased the shady figure down the terminal, but he snuck into the men’s room. At that moment my name came over a loudspeaker. “Karyn Campbell, please report to gate A 11 for boarding.”
This is when the blood in my veins began to simmer. The trickster had left me with two choices: an embarrassing rendezvous in the men’s room resulting in a possible sexual harassment charge, or a flight that would take me 200 miles from my precious.
I left. This past week I’ve lived in a complete and utter radio wave-free oasis of solitude.
At first, things went meditatively. Instead of creating useless multimedia messages solely for the sake of procrastination, I drew in my journal.
This bliss of nonsensical journal writing and flower picking lasted a day. Then someone in the office turned on the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden,” my former ringtone, and I reached mindlessly into my pocket to flip open my phone. It was then I realized Mick Jagger wasn’t calling me. No, no, he was just singing his song for the sake of music.
Soon things began spiraling out of control. I began listening to my former ringtones, like Citizen Cope’s “Bullet and a Target” and Lauryn Hill’s “Everything is Everything,” just to feel a little closer to my phone. “Where are you?” I whispered with a tear dripping down my cheek.
Okay, that’s a lie. But I did listen to “Bullet and a Target” and realized it’s fantastic, and my ringtone had been ruining it for me since high school. The intensity in which popular music is marketed ruins the art and the aesthetic of the tradition and downgrades the quality of the sound (and isn’t that what music is all about?).
Eventually I made my way to a cell phone store in a fit of disparity. After an exhausting conversation with a Cingular employee I made a horrible decision: I walked across the parking lot into Ross. Yes, the discount clothing store. I did this to buy a mixing bowl and a frame, not for a session in the torture chamber. The decision wasn’t horrible because of the store, but because of what lie within.
I was milling around the neon-lit store, grooving to a sensual Brian McKnight ballad playing overhead when two tweens skipped past me – rather, freak danced past me. They were both holding Sidekicks (cell phones with unspeakable capabilities), and each played a different ringtone out loud as if the phones were boom boxes expelling the music of scratched- and spit-on CDs. “You must not know about me, you must not know about me…” one of the pig-tailed girls murmured, moving her feet to the beat. Beyoncé’s hit single did not mix well with Brian’s ballad. I was pissed.
I bought the frame and left the mixing bowl sitting crooked on the shelf. After getting the hell out, I contemplated my next move. Ringtones made me cringe with anger and spite, but I wanted the companion of a cell phone so deeply. My phone ran off with another man, and my feelings were mixed.
I lasted a few more days stewing in uncertainty until I flirted with the cell phone kiosk guys at the mall to the point where they gave me a free, old, scratched sorry excuse for a cordless device. I think pity was their only motivation. Though I have no Internet or camera on this withering hunk of plastic, I also have no ringtone, which is pleasant (though probably defeats the purpose of having a portable phone anyway).
…On second thought, I should probably buy a new one with higher capabilities. Those new Modest Mouse downloadable tones seem like they’d be a fun prelude to a conversation… (sigh). I loathe the powers of marketing. I abhor the man at the airport, I despise my flip-flopping feelings toward phones but most my repugnance goes out to those 12-year-old girls with their loud, R&B shopping ways, and the future, where record labels and cell phone companies might as well merge into one annoying, fuzzy melting pot of noise.
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