Day 4: Blog a Day for the Month of May 2014

A few days ago, a woman came into the store.  She had a cell phone with all the bells and whistles and wanted to show me a color she was wanting to match.  As she was finding the link to the Pinterest post that showed the color in a room, she received a call.  "Oh!  Gotta get this!"  She took the call, and began to walk around the store as she was chatting.  Meanwhile, another customer came in and since I was the only person working that evening and my first customer seemed to be occupied, I began to help the other customer.  She told me that she wanted to get a particular color chip that her sister had gotten from another one of our stores while she was on vacation last week. They saw the color on Pinterest as well, but she couldn't remember the color name. She searched through her cell phone to find the color name in a text mesage from her sister, and in realizing she didn't have it saved in her messages, so she sent another text to her sister to get the color number again. Meanwhile, the other gal was still chatting to the person on the other end of her cell phone about how she was missing her son's ball practice and how her mother was bugging her to go to lunch so they could talk.  Her next comment floored me. "I told her that I got her that phone so we can talk anytime...but Grandma won't text, you know. Oh well....that's life!!"

At this time, the second gal was not-so-patiently waiting for her sister to text her back with the color number she was interested in.  Then, my store phone rings.  I let the second customer know that I am the only employee on duty and that I need to get the phone.  She was fine with that since she was waiting for her "lame sister" to text her back.  I took the phone call, made the paint that the phone customer ordered and came back out front.  The first customer was still chatting on the phone and now proceeded to step outside for a minute.  The second customer kept checking her messages each time the phone chirped at her.....disappointed and commenting out-loud with a sign each time it wasn't her sister texting her back with the color number.  She had a question about paint qualities and sheen differences, so I went back over to give her the run down.  I asked her, " What room are you painting?"  Her cell phone buzzed and she answered it "Hello?" then turned to me and mouthed the word "livingroom".  Then she told the person on the phone, "I'm at the paint store waiting for Lisa to text me the color number.  She is taking FOREVER!!" (In reality it had been no longer than 5 minutes since she had texted her sister.) "Yep.  Yep.  Ok, honey.....ok....well, I gotta go, the lady here is trying to help me with something.  Call daddy.  No...I can't talk right now, call daddy!  No....ok...well, then text me and I'll let you know.  Gotta go." (I noticed she didn't say "goodbye" or "love you" or anything of the sort.)  She turned back to me and stated, "Sorry," and we proceeded with our conversation, interrupted by an occasional chirp of the cell phone as another text came in.  None of them were from her sister.

We went back to talking about paint quality and sheen and throughout the conversation, her phone was buzzing, ringing, beeping and chirping.  Each time it chirped, she would excitedly say, "Oh!!  Maybe this is her!!"  Each time it wasn't.  She explained to me that she had sent a few more text messages to her sister letting her know that she was in the paint store "right now" so that she "understands that I am WAITING." She had a few more questions, each one interrupted with a buzz a chirp or a ring and each of my answers stopped with a "oh...hang on!  Nope not her." or a "Opp....gotta take this one." followed by a quick "Hello?" or a tap and slide of the cell phone screen.  This went on for about 15 minutes.

The first customer came back into the store just as I was finishing up a phone call.  She was finishing up her cell conversation and snapped her fingers at me followed up with a "Um.....you can help me now."  She stated to the person on the phone, "Ok...well gotta go...this lady at the paint store is in a hurry!"  She turned to me in-between glancing at her chirping cell phone, "Ok. (glances down at her phone), "Ok, (glances at it again) I need a color chip. Can you help me find it? (glance...tap...slide)  I'm in a hurry."  I stated, "Sure.  Do you know the name of the color or do have a color number?"  Her phone chirped again, and she stated, "Hold on," as she put her hand up toward me like you do when you tell someone to stop.  With a tap and a swish of her finger on the cell phone screen, she stated out-loud to no one in particular, "Ugh!  I'm getting it now!" and then proceeded to text the person back.  She then stated (while still texting), "This color chip is for my sister.  She's been bugging me about it all day so I thought I'd come get it myself since I can't remember the name of the color.....something "cream".....texting, texting aaaaaaand....send!  I heard the second customer's cell phone chirp over by the color chip display and saw her tap and swipe her cell screen.  I asked the second customer, "Is it Interactive Cream?"  Both of the customer screamed, "Yes!"  Then turned and looked at one another and sure enough....they were each looking at her own sister!

I thought it was sad that two grown women would be so involved with their cell phones that they didn't even see one another in a small store front.  The first sister looked at the second one, "Didn't you get my text?" The second sister stated. "Yes, but I couldn't get the 14 year old off of the phone long enough for me to check my messages."  Someone's phone chirped and they both looked down at their cell screens.  I got the color chip for the sister who wanted it and the other sister headed out to her car....phone in hand, face down and texting someone back.  They both left without saying goodbye to one another.  Then again, maybe they didn't get the message.

This morning, I found this while browsing my FB page.  It was posted by another friend and it is so true.  It is scary to think about how our gadget are replacing conversation.  Ironic that I am conveying these thoughts through a blog, I know.  The point is, that there needs to be balance.  The link below is a poem about social networking and how it can take over and leave someone lonely and isolated from the real word.  Look up, indeed.  After all, you may get an opportunity to have a REAL chat with your own sister!


http://blog.petflow.com/this-is-a-video-everyone-needs-to-see-for-the-first-time-in-my-life-im-speechless/