Through a Glass Darkly for March 6, 2008

• By BOB ANDERSON
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Mar 6, 2008 - Page: 1E

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People finally can talk to themselves without being thought odd.

As a young reporter I once entered a newspaper rest-room to find a sportswriter in an animated conversation.

It took me a moment to realize that the only partner with whom he could be conversing was made of porcelain.

The sportswriter, who was several decades my senior, gave me an irritated glance for my intrusiveness and went back to staring at the wall. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

Today, if I walked in on someone talking while alone in a room, I would just assume that the person had a fancy cell phone that perches atop an ear.

A friend of mine drew lots of questioning stares several years ago when he became the first person I knew to get a hands-free cell phone.

When taking smoke breaks outside the Livingston Parish Courthouse he would pace back and forth on the sidewalk while holding conversations with real folks, albeit they weren’t in sight. People walking past assumed he had an imaginary playmate.

Even to people driving by it looked odd because my friend has difficulty talking without making hand gestures. The first time I saw him walking alone, talking and waving both hands I really did fear he had cracked up.

Since then I’ve gotten used to people appearing to talk to themselves. Sometimes I still think they are addressing me, but usually I just assume they are speaking by phone with someone out of my sight. If they are actually talking to themselves, I hope they are having intelligent discourse.

People in cars have gotten away with talking to themselves for years. If caught jabbering while alone in a car at a stoplight, they just pretended to be singing along with the radio.

Now they can pretend to have a hands-free cell phone. They don’t even have to tap a rhythm on the steering wheel to keep their idiosyncrasy a secret.

The easiest way to tell if mouth-moving drivers really are talking on a cell phone is if they almost run over you, but never realize you’re there. That’s a sure sign that they’re minds are zoned in on telephone conversations and the rest of their brains have developed tunnel vision. People who talk only to themselves are much saner drivers.

I don’t have a hands-free, telephonic device, because I’ve never cared to spend a lot of time talking on a telephone. However, I find it comforting to know they exist.