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You talkin' to me? I don't see anyone else
By Dale Bryant
On a recent rainy day in San Francisco, a street person rushed past me, pushing his earthly belongings in a shopping cart and talking up a storm--presumably to voices in his head.
Sadly, it's not uncommon to encounter street people, lost in their own private worlds while living among what passes for the normal world. Sometimes they stand on street corners, especially in big cities, and preach salvation; others stroll by in crowds, heads bowed, busily chattering as if carrying on a conversation with a friend. On bustling streets, we've come to take such people in our stride. There's safety in numbers, after all. We figure we're fine so long as we don't make eye contact.
So I was unnerved, to say the least, when I found myself in a trendy local grocery store coming face to face with a well-dressed man spouting off in a loud voice. We were alone in the crackers and breakfast cereal aisle, him talking a blue streak, me feeling trapped. He seemed to be looking right at me. I turned, hoping to see that he was talking to someone behind me. No such luck.
I was about to head off in the other direction when I saw the wire dangling from his ear. This man, who had given me such a fright, was indeed talking to a voice in his head. The only difference between him and the street person in San Francisco was that the voice in this guy's head was entering through a cell phone headset. Clearly, he wasn't looking at me, he was staring straight ahead and not seeing me at all.
Since that day, it seems to me there's been a proliferation of people doing their grocery shopping while talking to voices in their heads. These people aren't the crazy people they first appear to be; they've just mastered another multitasking feat--making deals while picking through the brussels sprouts.
These are people, presumably, who used to make deals while negotiating busy on-ramps during the morning commute, while shaving and holding a cell phone to their ears. Then the public service campaign about the dangers of talking on cell phones while driving started. These people commendably wised up and got connected to their cell phones with headsets, thereby leaving one hand free for the steering wheel and one free for shaving.
What I wish is that someone would start a public service campaign warning of the dangers of grocery shopping while talking to disembodied voices. What's at risk is nothing less than a community's sense of itself. If people don't make eye contact at the grocery store, if they don't make small talk while standing in line, how are they going to feel they're part of a community?
I've been shopping at my favorite grocery store for 30 years. It's a store where Italian grandmothers share recipes while sorting through fava beans, and a young bride will occasionally ask me how to tell parsley from cilantro, or a bewildered husband will approach me with the grocery list from his wife and ask if I have any idea where to find saffron.
If I see some klutz pushing a cart around this haven of sanity, while carrying on a conversation with a voice beamed through a head set, I believe I would be within my rights if I ripped the wire out of his ear and stomped on it.
I also shop at my local Safeway, which recently became a superstore, complete with pharmacy, bakery, flower shop and meat market. It now carries as many varieties of mushrooms as the trendiest grocery store in the valley. The experience isn't nearly as fulfilling as it was, when every one of my neighbors considered it the worst Safeway in the state of California. We would stand in excruciatingly long lines, while inept clerks doddled around trying to figure out prices. Those of us who waited would look at each other and roll our eyes; we'd sigh and shake our heads and wonder out loud why we put up with it. It was a neighborhood bonding experience that made us feel connected, even to people we had never seen before. We knew we must be neighbors or we wouldn't dream of being in this miserable store.
Just the other day, I was inspecting red and yellow peppers in my new, improved local Safeway when a man standing next to me began talking in a very agitated tone. He wasn't talking to me. I might as well have been, well, chopped liver.
It's bad enough that cell phones have invaded restaurants, and that they've made driving a much riskier proposition. But really, what deal can be so important that it's worth sacrificing eye contact with a neighbor, a shared word about the price of chicken breasts or the opportunity to help a frail neighbor by pulling a carton of milk off a tall shelf for her?
On city streets, people we think of as crazy push their belongings in shopping carts and talk to voices in their heads. In grocery stores people we don't think of as crazy push shopping carts down aisles, oblivious to the people in front of them and next to them, while carrying on conversations with voices in their heads. One has to wonder.
Dale Bryant is the executive editor of The Sunnyvale Sun.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
