c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS)

UNDATED _ Our aspirations for a spring break vacation were quite simple: peace, quiet and sun.

We headed for a hotel on the beach where we could cash in 10 years of mileage credit for a decent rate and prepared for a week of “vegging.” No plans except to find a lounge chair and a cold drink.

It started out well enough. A week of perfect weather predicted, a nice room, even a water slide for the young at heart. We chose four lounge chairs, pulled out sunglasses and began to slather on the sunscreen.

And then it happened. Before 10 a.m. the poolside area began to reverberate with the sound of cell phones ringing. Some had that tinny tone, others had been programmed to play a nasty tune. Others had been thoughtfully placed on the vibrate mode judging from the flesh that spontaneously began to jiggle.

Then the conversations began. Discussions with stock brokers. Breakups with lovers. Orders given to employees. Orders taken from employers. Agitated conversations in languages I couldn’t identify.

One man seemed to be conducting a staff meeting on his cell phone, potbelly hanging over garish swim trunks not 8 feet from my lounge chair.

After an hour I decided to work out my frustrations by heading for the jogging path along the ocean. A few strides into my run I was overtaken by a man whose one arm was pumping while his other was holding a phone to his ear as he barked out orders.

I couldn’t take it. I ran down to the beach, sat in the sand and listened to the booming of the waves on the shoreline. My minutes of solitude were interrupted by a jet skier screaming out a conversation into a bright yellow waterproof mobile phone.

Heading for the room to get an aspirin I entered the elevator with an attractive young woman. The door closed and her phone rang. “What,” she said, obviously picking up an ongoing conversation. She turned her back to me and hissed into the phone. “How can you say you love me? Do you even know what it means?”

I stared helplessly at the elevator display, hoping I reached my floor before she threw the phone.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a cell phone, but it never occurred to me to take it on vacation. I don’t use it in public places unless my kids call and are stranded somewhere. And even then I apologize to those in the general vicinity if it rings. I am obviously in the minority.

I don’t spend more than a minute or two talking on my cell phone for the most part, probably because I am old enough to still think it is expensive. But I also hate the idea of even my most mundane conversations being overheard by people I haven’t met. Somehow it seems like more than they should know about me.

And most conversations I heard over vacation were more than I wanted to know. I was tempted to comment back, “Should you really be using that tone of voice?” “Don’t be such a wimp.” “Thanks for the stock tip.” “Do you think they’d listen to you if they saw that ugly swimsuit?” After all, their conversation had become mine, too.

I am back from vacation and home in an area with notoriously bad cell phone reception. I used to complain about it. Now I am grateful for the relative peace and quiet I experience when my phone display declares, “No service.” And for our next vacation we will be looking for a place where the reception is even worse.

DEA END BOURKE