I was busy watching the clock when Muldoon poked his head in.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Watching the clock. Come on in.”
He walked into my office waving two tickets.
“College hoops, at the Garden. We might be able to make tip-off,” he said. “What time you got?”
I looked at my screen saver, a little digital clock that floated about. Technology had made it so much easier to keep track of how much time you were wasting. I was waiting for the evil VP, Brenda, to leave. Then that suck-up Andy usually left right after her. Then I could go home, have a late dinner, get a poor night’s sleep, and do it all again tomorrow.
“Seven-sixteen and forty-three seconds,” I said, reaching for the tickets. “Let me see those, you don’t see hard copies of tickets anymore. You sure they’re for this year?”
Muldoon was slow to hand them over. It was the first sign of trouble.
“It’s part of a Throwback Tuesday promotion. You know, real, physical tickets.”
“They good seats?” I asked, having to practically grab the damn things from him. I scanned the tickets, and something seemed odd. “There’s no section number, just some letters. What the hell is section NPZ?”
Muldoon said something, but coughed like he was trying to cover it up.
“What was that?” I asked. “Sounded like you said ‘No Fun Zone’ or something.”
“No Phone Zone,” he said.
“What the heck is, No Phone Zone?” I asked. Then I spotted the fine print at the bottom of the ticket. Ticket holder agrees to turn over all cell phones for the duration of the sporting event.
“They take your phone,” I said. “Like some kind of police state.”
“It’s just a promotion. Some marketing whiz down at Georgetown did one recently at a basketball game. It was a big success. It’s all about good old-fashioned interaction. We can talk,” he said.
“I talk to you every day. That seems like plenty.”
I checked the tickets again, then I looked at Muldoon. He looked hurt. I agreed, against my better judgement, and a few minutes later we were in a cab. I used the ride to look up that Georgetown game.
Sure enough, there it was. There were seats in an “Actual Reality” section. There were pictures of people leaving their phones, and going to enjoy the game.
But what if something happened to a loved one, how would I find out? And what about our phones? What if someone hacked them? They could swipe our banking info. Next thing you know I’m paying for a TV somebody just bought in Reno.
None of this seemed to be a concern to the cheery young gal who greeted us at the check-in table at the Garden.
“Gentlemen, so nice of you to join us. Just sign these claim tickets and we’ll secure your phones,” she said.
Muldoon ponied up two devices, and called me out me when I just handed over my personal phone.
“Come on, work phone too,” he said.
The gal motioned us to the other end of the table. “And please fill out a name tag. They’re a great way for you to meet your neighbors.”
I stared at the rows of blank name tags. Hello, My Name Is… I hated the damn things, although they are pretty good lint removers. Muldoon was happily writing his name, fully engaged in the experience. I expected he might even put a little smiley face on his tag.
We got to our section and there were three rows of people wearing name tags, like they were waiting to be herded onto a bus. There were smiles and pleasant greetings for us. It felt like we were new club members, which I guess we were.
Muldoon settled into the seat on my right, and immediately started chatting up Bill, the thirty-something guy next to him. On my left was a young woman with long, black hair. I tried a half-turn maneuver to get a glimpse of her name, but she caught me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not staring at you, just trying to see your name.”
I wouldn’t be having this awkward exchange if I had my phone. I’d be scrolling through some website and keeping to myself. Maybe checking Facebook to see what that kid I knew in fourth grade was up to. Last I saw, he had taken his family to Vegas for the weekend.
“Beren,” the girl said.
I nodded and smiled like I understood, but I had no clue what she had said. Great, I was going to have to sit next to her for the next two hours. Maybe she could talk to the girl on her other side. I felt my fingers twitch, I needed a phone fix. Anything to give me an out.
She saw the confusion on my face and said, “It’s Turkish.”
“Ahh,” was all I could manage.
“It’s okay, I get that all the time,” she said.
She introduced me to the girl on her other side, Jen. It was a far easier name for me to understand. Both were in their thirties and worked together. They seemed okay with giving up their phones for the length of a basketball game.
“You know what’s going to happen if this idea catches on,” I said, during a lull in the action. “We’re all going to have to go out on the sidewalk to check our phones.”
“Like the smokers, when they want a cigarette,” Jen said.
There was more talk about their jobs at a law firm, and about what I did. I even learned from Beren about basketball in Turkey, and that there were some Turkish NBA players. And Muldoon seemed to be having a blast talking to the kid Bill. It was like the technological safety net of the phone had been removed, and we were out here on the old conversation high wire again.
Sure there were lulls where you were just dying to find out the weather forecast for tomorrow, or something else that you didn’t really need to know right away. But when the final buzzer sounded, we lingered for a moment, exchanging contact info the old way, on a business card.
We said goodbye to the girls, and Bill, and stood up to leave.
“Come on,” Muldoon said. “We can go get our phones.”
“Do we have to?” I asked.