Can You Hear Me Now?

My next door neighbor does it. My friend's husband does it. My neighbor down the street does it. The SJG, on the other hand, never does it. The chances of you driving by my Tuscan-style estate and seeing me out front, talking on the cell phone while I pace back and forth: zip. I never do this. It's a guy thing. I'm absolutely convinced of this. Why they can't talk on the cell phone inside the house remains a mystery. Maybe it's a reception thing. Or a pride thing. Look at me, I'm outside and I'm on the cell phone. Guy thing, absolutely.

So yesterday, as Sir Blakey walks me around the neighborhood, and I see Jerry in front of his house, holding something in his hand, I assume, oh hey, there's Jerry on his cell phone. Nothing new there. For fun, I decide to walk over and harass him. Gal thing. So many ways to annoy the menfolk, so little time. Sir Blakey and I head in Jerry's direction. I see his mouth moving. Clearly, he's on the phone, making important Hollywood deals. Jerry is a tummeler. He's always got something in various stages of I'm-not-sure going on, and it sounds cool.

"Hey, Jerry," I say, "who you talkin' to now, Mr. Bigshot?" Actually, I don't say that, I just say "hi, hon," my normal neighborly greeting, often followed by a hug. I'm an affectionate gal. And then I whisper, "Are you on the phone?" He looks at me funny. "I'm on the celery." He's eating a stick of celery, that's all. He's not talking to it or anything. "You're on the celery phone," I say, positive I'm the first human to ever make this connection. Celery. Celery phone.

Later, I will Google and discover this connection has been made already. I will lapse into a brief depression, then climb out, triumphantly. But in this moment, I grab his celery phone and talk into it.  "Can you hear me now?" He looks at me. "You are a silly person." "What sort of apps does this celery come with?" I ask. "None," he says. "What a rip off," I say, and go on my way.