Imagine this was your house, full of everything you own in the world.  And imagine that one of those cars is your family car, a modest vehicle that took you years to save up for.  All gone now, in a four alarm blaze.

photo courtesy of Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal

One of my sister's students lived in that home.  He's an autistic middle school student (my sister teaches special education) who, according to my sister, is one of the sweetest students she's ever had and does not have the complete capacity to understand what has happened to his home.

The family has only the clothes they were wearing when they ran out of their burning home.  When my sister provided him with all new school supplies and asked him if he wanted to go put them in his locker, he said no because he wanted to carry them around all day.  These school supplies were now the only things he owned.  When my sister asked him if there was anything she could get for him, he said, "I need a home."

Four families lived in that home and the mayor has graciously put them all up in a local hotel and is helping them find new homes.  In addition, the school is having a fundraiser and and holding a collection for items for the families.  However, this is a generally economically disadvantaged city and it is a great burden for them to lose everything they own.  This isn't something they will recover from easily, especially for my sister's student's family, who has to care for a special needs adolescent in addition to putting their life back together.

What infuriated me, though, was my sister's account of the other kids at school.  This student does not have the capacity to understand that when people are making fun of him and laughing at him, they are not simply talking to him as friends and laughing with him.  Apparently, he is the butt of many jokes on a daily basis.  They tell him to do and say things just so they can laugh at him.  They smear barbeque sauce on his pants at lunch and then make jokes about how he defecated on himself.  He laughs along with them, thinking this is what friendship is, only to have them laugh at him even more.

My sister unleashed on them on Monday, informing them that if this continued, they'd have to answer directly to her.  (Which is the case ordinarily, but I get the impression that she seriously gave them the what-for about this.)  I sent her a "Good for you!" email but sat there and wondered about those parents.  I know they're struggling.  I know raising kids isn't easy, much less in an inner city environment.  But there HAS to always be time to teach courtesy.  I know kids are mean (I was the butt of many mean jokes growing up, often on a daily basis, like any other fat kid) but to pick on someone who 1) does not have the capacity to understand, retaliate or keep up and 2) just lost everything in a fire?  I have no words to describe how angry that made me feel.

Unfortunately, the district my sister teaches in is the sort where you're lucky to get four parents show up out of a class of twenty-five for Parents' Night.  These parents work long hours and often multiple jobs just to make ends (not) meet.  They don't have the leisure of sitting at a desk and reading articles about how parental engagement in children's education is vital for success.  They're too busy working hard to get by.  So I don't know how these kids can be reached.  I know my sister is doing all she can, but her influence only reaches so far.

My thoughts go out to her student, his family, and the other families who lost their homes.  I hope they find peace and security soon and that the community outreach is significant enough and of enough help for them to get through this.

Naturally, as one is thinking about the impending birth of a child, a cell phone is a great thing to have. I can't imagine being at work and trying to reach the hubby to tell him my contractions have started without being able to call his cell.  Sure, it would have been entirely manageable, but it makes life just that bit more convenient.  And I'm sure once I am a mom, I'll be happy to have easy contact with my child care providers and, later, my child.

But beyond that?  I wish all cell phones would jump into the ocean and never surface.

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I'm taking a class called "Time and Learning" and this week we discussed how technology has changed the pace of life as well as general behavior.  We also talked about information overload and how we feel when we're forced to disconnect (phone dies, we're in an area with no cell service or internet access, etc).  Last week we talked about family time versus work time and male time versus female time, so this week we also tied that in.  There probably haven't been two weeks in class yet that had me as fired up but ultimately depressed as these.

I strongly dislike talking on the phone.  I get very antsy and just want to hang up, usually.  This, I believe, stems from the fact that I spent several years working in a call center and had to answer phone calls for eight hours a day, five days a week.  During that time period, I basically stopped answering my home phone and eventually also stopped returning calls.  Eventually, people stopped calling me.  Thank goodness for electronic communication otherwise I'd have no friends left at this point. (I do really have to be thankful for that.)

But now?  Now I always answer my phone... because people know I hate idle chit-chat.  When someone calls me, be it the hubby, my parents, friends, whoever, they only do so for specific reasons.  If they're calling just to say hi, it's honestly because we haven't spoken in a long time.  I'm fine with all of this.

What I'm not fine with is the way in which technology interrupts life.  I will not put up with cell phones on the table during dinner (at home or out).  I hate when people check their phones during dinner.  I hate when I'm talking to someone and they're texting as I talk to them.  And if your phone rings and you answer it?  Ugh.  It had better be something seriously important.  SERIOUSLY important.

I had someone tell me once they'd prefer if I picked up and said, "I can't talk right now" rather than letting the call go to voicemail.  Can't you assume if the call goes to voicemail it's because I can't talk right now???

I miss answering machines.  If you missed a call because you weren't home, you could find out nine, ten hours later and call back the next day and no one got bent out of shape.

In class, someone made a comment about how "no one just stands in line anymore."  Everyone is fiddling with their cell phone, trying to look occupied or is otherwise just incapable of standing around and not fiddling with some piece of technology.  Me?  I stand in line all the time and look around.  Sure, sometimes I'll glance at my phone or I will answer a text.  But if I'm in line at the post office, I'm probably just standing there, seeing who else is there, wondering what they're mailing, who are they mailing it to.

The other day I was at the post office and a man in a wheelchair was at one of the windows.  He dropped some change from his wallet and was struggling to reach it.  I was at the front of the line on the other side of the lobby and expected someone near the back of the line, near him, to help.

But no.  No one helped him.  There were probably five or six people in line and three or four were on their cell phones.  The others were just looking around  - or, worse, just watching him reach for the coins.  After about five seconds, I left my place in the line and helped him out.

We're disconnected from our own humanity.  Does family dinner even mean anything if people are twiddling with cell phones as they talk?  What would they talk about if it didn't appear in their email?

I do enjoy the convenience of cell phones, but I absolutely hate how they're disconnecting us from each other.

I've read about couples/families that have a "no computers after Xpm" policy.  After a certain time of the evening, they spend time together as couples or families with no electronic interruptions.  I would LOVE to do this, but the hubby has no email access all day long; nighttime is the only time he gets to sit in front of his computer and check his email and various message boards.  I hate it, but also feel like it's unreasonable for me to ask him not to do that.  When is he supposed to do it, then?  I don't know what will happen after our son is born.  Our whole schedule and expectations are going to have to change.

I love email.  I love blogs and blogging.  I love reading the news online.  I love the friendships I've made online.  But I'm bitter about our electronic lives, too... and I can't reach a point of contented compromise in my mind.  I'm not perfect about any of this.  I've answered texts during dinner, checked my phone during conversations, and all the rest... but I twitch inside every time I do it.  I don't feel good about the behavior.

I miss not feeling obligated to answer my phone or texts immediately, even though I love having instant access to friends and family.  I miss writing letters.  I miss going into a public bathroom and not hearing someone in the next stall chatting or texting.  I miss seeing people read books or magazines at Motor Vehicles, instead of texting or playing videogames.  I prefer board games to video games.  I love my iPod but I miss mix tapes.

I'm feeling like a crotchety old person at 34.  "You know, when I was your age, we wrote letters with pens.  And had to buy stamps!  And had to wait days or a week or more for a response! And if the phone rang, we ran to answer it... because there was only one or two... and it was across the house - chained to the wall!  And you know how we 'downloaded' songs? We listened to the radio all day until our favorite song came on and then we recorded it, trying not to also record the DJs intro."

And get off my lawn.

We've definitely gained a lot through technology (I adore how many people I've been able to connect and re-connect with through Facebook, for example - childhood friends, etc), but I can't shake the feeling that we're losing big things and possibly not noticing.