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Nineties chart toppers Third Eye Blind to play Kirby Center Dec. 20; Stephan Jenkins to play acoustic set at Gallery of Sound prior to performance

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Berwick hires Frank Sheptock as new head football coach

<p>I realize each decade has its thing.</p><p>In the 1950s it was sexy to smoke like Charles Bronson, especially if you were a woman attending card club. In the 1960s, it was Beatlemania and fallout shelters, while the 1970s saw a preponderance of 8-track tapes (I still own a Chicago 8-track) and pet rocks. The &#8217;80s, my favorite, introduced the onslaught of those hideous/adorable Cabbage Patch dolls, mullets and Nintendo. Fashions were a Rubik&#8217;s Cube of ugliness. The &#8217;90s, though, is when we stopped talking to each other and began communicating via cell phones and computers. Sure, it looked like you were yelling into your shoe with the first &#8220;bag phones&#8221; but it was like magic.</p><p>And, here we are today.</p><p>I was food shopping yesterday and this is, without exaggeration, my most dreaded task of the week, and that includes having to clean a toilet replete with sprinklings which are never my own. But, I use the time to meditate while perusing the asparagus and spaghetti sauce I pass off as my own. I&#8217;ve decided to use these occasions for my time of Om. As I strolled down Pasta Alley, making a right onto Coffee Court, I looked down the aisle and noticed every, single shopper was talking on a cell phone. I was stupefied. There went my Om.</p><p>I&#8217;m certain everyone was speaking loudly into their devices in the beverage aisle of Gerrity&#8217;s because there was a cornucopia of emergencies, right?</p><p>Here&#8217;s what I heard: 1. &#8220;Do you want decaf or regular? Really? Regular&#8217;s on sale. And I have a coupon. If you want decaf you&#8217;ll just have to stop at Dunkin&#8217; in the morning. Don&#8217;t yell at me &#8230;&#8221;</p><p>2. &#8220;So I said to him: If you get that drunk again at a children&#8217;s birthday party and hit on another mother, I swear to God, I will hit you over the head with a shovel. And he says to me: I wouldn&#8217;t have to hit on another mother if you would just &#8230;&#8221;</p><p>3. &#8220;Yes, yes, the colonoscopy is tomorrow. I&#8217;m shopping for more chicken broth. I should start to (poop) any minute now! I hope they have a public restroom. No, no, I can keep talking &#8230;&#8221;</p><p>I talk on my cell all the time. Not in public stores. Not when I&#8217;m driving. Not when I&#8217;m cleansing for a colonoscopy. We&#8217;ve become a generation of androids where our every move is dictated by a device the size of a hamster. As our children are being born with no appendix or wisdom teeth due to the mysteries of evolution, I envision the next generation being born with enormous thumbs and hands permanently held in front of their tiny faces, clicking spontaneously.</p><p>I saw a posse of children disembarking from a school bus and almost every child held a phone. No one looked at each other. It was sad. I don&#8217;t watch &#8220;The Walking Dead,&#8221; but the constant parade of disinterested, monotone cell-phone addicts looks very much like what I expect a zombie apocalypse to resemble. But with better shoes.</p><p>We&#8217;re priming our children to lack basic social skills because we insist on obnoxiously bellowing into a phone while shopping for soup. We&#8217;re driving and talking and texting and dying on the roadways because the conversation involving nothing can&#8217;t wait until we get home.</p><p>Here&#8217;s a fascinating fact: humans lived pretty successfully without the accoutrements of a cell phone for about a hundred years. Truly. Grocery shopping got done, driving was just driving and miraculously, we all went to the bathroom without an accompanying game of Candy Crush to pass the time.</p><p>Let&#8217; s make a resolution for 2016. Oh. Wait. Hold on; my phone is chirping. It&#8217;s an emergency! Nancy needs coffee! Decaf! Well, this is awkward &#8230;</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Maria Jiunta Heck</p><p>Life Deconstructed</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Maria Jiunta Heck of West Pittston is a mother of three, a librarian and a business owner who lives to dissect the minutiae of life.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Life Deconstructed: Android apocalypse and smart phones define a generation