Closet Southerners Tweeting Away

I'd barely gotten used to the cellphone tweeters when I
heard about twittering.

Getting used to them doesn't mean I've become more
tolerant, just that I don't look around when a stranger
barks out "Hello!" near me. I still wish I didn't have to
hear all the details of people's lives. Do they have to
talk so loud, are they afraid their phone won't actually
carry their words to the person on the other phone?

"Oh, nothing much.
I'm sitting here in the dentist's office.
What?
Mary's here.
Mary's right here with me.
What have you been doing?"

I knew that many were texting to one another when
they were not communicating verbally, now they can
also report their progress through life to the whole
world by twitting.

"I had dinner at Uncle Fred's then
drove to the park, saw Robert standing in
his yard and waved to him..."

My old dog ties me down, he needs a lot of
attention. I haven't been north in a few years, so I was
thinking that the cellphone talk I hear was particularly
Southern, this compulsion to report with endless
detail, and to inform. That was the atmosphere in
which I grew up. They noticed everything. They knew
where you were and where you had been and many
of the things you did or said while you were there.
There was no privacy.

Then I heard about twittering and looked at it and now
it's clear to me. There's a bunch of closet Southerners
out there typing away on their little keypads.

I bet when I do get to go north again or if I head west
and find myself among people talking on cellphones
that I'll feel right at home.