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I used to hate people who own handphones, but recently my son gave me one and my whole attitude changed after that. He said to me: "Use it when you go out, so people at home can call you should anything happen." He is right, because after all, we read and hear so much about all kind of frightening things happening when the owner is not at home.
Umberto Eco, the famous novelist once wrote that there are five kinds of people, who uses the hand phone, three kinds who really need them and two others who don't. According to Eco, handicapped people would need them, so they can easily contact their doctors when necessary. In the second place come the serious professionals, who have to be contacted in case of emergency. Thirdly Eco mentions the adulteress, people who have secret affairs with a person who already belong to another, so she can make secret appointments.
Those who don't really need them are the group of lonely people, who feel isolated when they are alone and need someone to talk to or those who wish to show that they are greatly in demand, especially in important business deals. This last category may even buy bogus hand phones available at street junctions for the sake of showing off.
But hat Eco wrote the article in 1991 and with the rapid development of technology, 9 years is considered very long, so the gadgets made 9 years ago may now be considered out of date if not obsolete. The hand phones available nowadays are the result of the efforts of our technologists, who after years of trying to improve the human lifestyles have made a tool, so small that it easily fits in your shirt pocket and so light that no one knows that ladies are carrying it in their designers handbags.
The consumers have responded to the new inventions with enthusiasm and have found many new uses for the sophisticated tool. In Indonesia they came at the right time, because the public phones were either constantly out of order or stolen by vandals.
Even housewives suddenly found that they could rule the household when they are shopping in a mall or having "high tea" in a posh restaurant with their friends.
Once I saw a young girl in a beauty salon, who after answering a phone call, cancelled her appointment and quickly ran out. When I showed my surprise my hairstylist said: "She is the perfect Coca Cola girl."
"Coca Cola girl?" I wondered.
"Yes," said the young man giggling, "Remember Di mana saja, kapan saja...., (any time, any place)? That is exactly what she is: to be enjoyed any time, any place."
My friend Pianka has different ideas about hand phones. He denied his wife one because "she always talks so loudly". Imagine that she is in a mall and suddenly starts laughing loudly, that would be so embarrassing. Mia was very sad of course, and thought that she might be the only career woman, who by the year 2000 would not be the owner of a hand phone.
But luck is usually on her side, and one day Mia found herself caught in a huge traffic jam. That is not unusual for Jakarta, but that day she happened to have a very important dinner invitation. "I am sorry," she stammered to her host when she finally arrived, two hours too late. " I know I should have called, but I don't have a hand phone you see."
Her husband who arrived earlier from another direction looked angry but he got the message. A few days later Mia called me and said: "Guess where I am, I am in a huge traffic jam right in front of your house. I just got a new hand phone from Pianka, but had to promise not to call where lots of people can hear me."
She now clutches her handphone to her ear as if it is a security blanket as soon as she is the car, calling all her friends and business partners.
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