Recently, I accompanied my wife to have her car serviced at a dealership where she purchased it from. She asked me if I wanted to go with her, indicating she thought it would only take a couple of hours to have it done.
She takes her car to have it serviced there cause she trusts them and they periodically remind her when it’s time to have it done.
I told her sure, why not, if it was only going to take a couple of hours to get it done.
So, off we went, she checked in with the service department as we arrived and we left the car with them, heading off to the area to wait.
After waiting for about an hour and half, the guy she had checked in with came to us and let know that while they were finished checking it all out and for the reason we had taken it there to begin with, they had discovered a leak that needed attention.
We had an option, get it done that day, or bring it back later. We chose to have it done then, since we already had waited an hour and a half. He said the wait would be another two or three hours and gave us the cost.
I provided all this information for our readers of this column to get to the real point of what I want to write about and that is cell phone use.
Recently, I wrote a column about how cell phone use has just consumed our nation and the world.
But I got to really see it in action as we ended up spending about five hours in that waiting room.
When we first walked in there were a dozen or so customers already waiting. The number varied that day from a low of about a half a dozen to around 16 at the peak.
Everyone of us, and I include Pat and I, had a cell phone. Most all of those customers were on their cell phones talking, texting, just scanning or what all else you can do with one.
My first thought as I watched the others throughout that room is what did we did do before we had cell phones while we waited for our vehicles to be serviced? I guess we visited with others, or just sat silent or looked at magazines.
Pat and I used ours some while we waited, but not constantly as so many of the others who were waiting did.
Some of those waiting were just completely consumed with their phones and hardly ever put them down. Others, like us, used them sparingly to text and just browse.
We personally had no conversations on our phones while waiting. But I can say I don’t really fault those who did because there was nothing else for them to do and it doesn’t make the wait quite so boring.
I might note, too, there were no kids in that room during the entire time we were there!