The Curmudgeon Goes On Phone Hiatus: Part 2

I wasn’t planning a definitive lifestyle change. I just figured I was tired of talking to people. So why not forgo renewing my phone minutes?

Two weeks passed. I didn’t notice anything missing from my life. I liked the peace of a phone which didn’t ring… ever. I usually bring my phone with me as I travel but it’s invariably off; now it was dead silent all the time. It was close to the perfect phone!

I was still using text, which is either impossible or unsafe while driving; depending on your point of view. So text only matters when you’re at your destination and it’s usually brief: “I got beef jerky and tomatoes.” “You were supposed to get milk and TP.” An ideal level of conversation!

I travel with the infernal device off and I disable the GPS. This probably means nothing. I assume the little fucker is never off and it’s my experience that GPS is never off no matter how many times you say “no” to various apps.

GPS tracking is a bridge too far to me. In our weirdly unstable clowns-in-charge era, the FBI and a whole ecosystem of internal Stasi-like agencies are simply in love with domestic spying. GPS tracking is entirely too much power in the hands of psycophants.

Didn’t the FBI used to um… catch criminals? When’s the last time they rounded up an actual criminal? Bank robbers, counterfeiters, pedophiles, human traffickers, people who fart in elevators, there’s still real crime. When’s the last time the FBI made an airtight case against an actual no-bullshit criminal? Did they forget how? Does the mafia no longer exist? Are there no crimes but wrongthink?

No point in pretending otherwise; several agencies are focused exclusively on domestic spying against unpopular political views and trying to talk retarded dumbasses into doing stupid shit that’ll bulk up the anti-terrorism budget. The FBI as criminal enterprise instead of FBI as crime stopper is one reason among many to watch your back. They’re signaling their priorities loud and clear! They gave up even the appearance of propriety. It’s up to us to take the hint. One instance among many: law abiding people that drove to the vicinity of DC on Jan 6th seem to have been “questioned” by folks who have no particular legal reason to know where those citizens were that day.

Yet, supposedly, I’m the paranoid one.

The point is I travel a lot within a society that’s fading. Neither domestic tranquility nor the rule of law can be assumed. I won’t bother wishing it were otherwise. Accept what is, not what ought to be.

This summer there will be riots. The only question is where, when, how violent the “peacefully protesters” get, and who will be scapegoated. The last part is key. I don’t want to be that guy. Someone has to be victimized to cover the asses of jerks who confuse “peaceable assembly” with “loot a TV from Target”. You know it, I know it, we all know it… so act like it’s true.

I started wondering “what happens if something stupid goes down in the vicinity of my truck”? Suppose I’m rolling down a highway, completely ignoring a city where long festering mismanagement is boiling over into riots. Suppose a person of a protected political class gets hurt. Suppose people with large budgets and loose morals need a handy white male redneck upon which they’ll build a “narrative”?

Imagine the discussion: “The guy with six outstanding warrants stroked out on drugs after setting fire to a WalMart. While he did this about 300 cars passed by. The people in the cars were mostly acceptable; thugs, assholes, protected classes, useful idiots, angry harpies with green hair, and limp soyboys that spend a lot of time talking about their genitals. Luckily one deplorable in a farm truck passed a half mile away. It was driven by a bearded freak from flyover country. He’s perfect! He looks like a serial killer, he’s grumpy as fuck, he uses big words, and he we can quote his satirical squirrel stories out of context to make him sound like a monster. Lets blame this event on him!”

In a fortnight I’d be accused of racism, my reputation (such as it is) would be ruined, they’d impound my truck, accuse me of aggravated free thinking, and force me to rack up huge legal bills.

Sounds paranoid doesn’t it? Yet, is it impossible? Really? What behavior of the government or the application of law in recent time assures us the travesty I imagined couldn’t happen? Can we count on limits, norms, common sense, or moral behavior in 2021?

The fact that I’m law abiding edges toward irrelevant. This ‘aint Mayberry and the law ‘aint what it once was. As the law devolves from written words to “mob rule”, nobody is truly safe.
Long story short? I don’t expect my truck to catch on fire; but I carry a fire extinguisher. Likewise I don’t expect the FBI to kick down the door because I drove past a riot; but I put my cell phone in a Faraday cage.

(On a related note, I’ve been meaning to get one of those Dash Cams too. Any Dash Cam advice with specific makes and models submitted in the comments will be rewarded with a gold star.)

So there I was, stuffing my GPS off, powered off, out of minutes, phone into a Faraday envelope when Mrs. Curmudgeon says “does that really work”.

Hell yeah it works! Radio waves, unlike modern society, are still bound by reality.

Then I had doubts. “I dunno’ give me a call and see what happens.”

So Mrs. Curmudgeon dials and my “phone” (which is both out of minutes and blocked in the Faraday envelope) “hangs up on her”. Except that’s not what happened at all. It’s merely what it sounded like on her end of the call.

I’d never thought of what happens to anyone calling me. I assumed I’d get a thing on my phone “Person X tried to call you at date Y”. Maybe even a voicemail (which I never check).

At my prompting, she sent a text message, which looked “sent” as usual. An hour and 70 miles later I opened the envelope and the text popped up within 5 minutes. Damn impressive message routing!

Because it was out of minutes, there was no indication she had tried to call. It simply didn’t register the attempted communication! (When I have minutes, the instant the phone is out of the Faraday cage it’ll notify me of who called and when.)

I grudgingly decided that maybe, possibly, hypothetically, there could have been a few important calls. I might have missed something because my phone had been out of minutes for a month. Late that night I bought some minutes (online) and then… nothing.

Just kidding.

A couple hours later, in the middle of the night, the fucking thing woke me up from a deep sleep.

“We’re calling to contact you about the warranty on your car.”

DAMMIT!