I didn’t take him for a marimba kind of guy, and yet there it was. He pulled back his monogrammed Brooks Brothers cuffs and said, “Hello?”
Like a custom license plate, a person’s cellular ring tone can be a little window into who he is deep down, freed from all of his grown-up trappings. Of course, it could just as easily be the ringtone set as a program default, but I guess that says a lot about the person, too.
Most of us are eager to throw off the shackles of such a suggestion. We will let our carrier determine the gigabytes and cost and contract specs of our cellphone, but not the jingle we hear when we use it. We unpack our new super duper SJX phone that will enable us to send our voices and data across continents, take and store our photos, give us directions to Bozeman, Montana, and answer questions like, “Who played Alice on ‘The Brady Bunch’?” In short, this new wonder does everything except make toast (that will be the SJXT), but what do we do first? Select a ringtone.
Or maybe that’s just me. When someone calls, I want my phone to be playing my song. Of course I do. I’ll hear it several times a day, so why not make it something I like?
Picking a ringtone can be time-consuming, though. You start by pondering … Do I go serious or playful? Opt for cultural awareness points or reach back for an oldie?
There are so many ringtones to choose from, Cosmic or Old Car Horn, Stargaze or By the Sea. Your phone can chirp like a cricket, quack like a duck, hoot like an owl. When you receive a text, your phone can click like a typewriter (speaking of oldies) or send out a trumpet blast from Ye Olde Sherwood Forest. It can buzz like your dryer or bing like the timer on your old Easy Bake Oven. And those are just the free ones. If you’re willing to invest a couple of dollars, your phone can ring forth with the theme from your favorite TV show, a line from your favorite movie, and every time your phone rings, every time you receive a text message, the people around you will hear exactly what you chose.
Exactly, which could lead to complications. I realize this is the age when people post their entire life on Facebook, but you must remember that you won’t always be around vetted friends. You’ll be with strangers in a waiting room, colleagues at a business dinner or your Sunday school class gathered to help out in a soup kitchen. So do you really want your phone to routinely belt out “Red Hot Mama”? Do you want it to be playing “I Got Plenty of Nothing” for the bank teller or the theme from “Fast and Furious” when you’re in line at the DMV?
Here’s another thought: When other people hear your ringtone, you have auditory control over that moment of their lives, a power you can use for good or evil. You can jolt people with a blood-curdling scream (it seemed funny back when you chose it) or send them away humming the Oscar Mayer Wiener jingle. You can pick the theme from “It’s a Small World,” which can go either way.
The choice is up to you. It is your phone. I selected the Linus and Lucy theme from the Peanuts cartoons. It’s who I am and I’m happy to share.
But marimba guy? Really, I couldn’t see it.
