Random Thought #7: Those inopportune ringtones

Remember back when ringtones were the cool new way to further announce our individuality to the world? I remember back when even having something like 20 different types of those mechanical ringtones on a cell phone was just all the rage, and with each new generation of cell phone came an exponential rise in the variety of tones available. We went from options like "Chimes low", "Chimes high", "Alert", "Bells", etc to a selection of just about every possible audible sound or collection of sounds a person could dream up. I hesitate to use the word music or musical ringtones here given some of the junk labeled as such...just think "Macarena" and you get my drift.

Anyway, the funny thing with ringtones is that no matter how cool, hip, or cutting-edge they are to their owner, there is nothing more embarrassing/annoying than having the ringer set to high and then having someone call the phone at an inopportune time, like in the middle of a professor's lecture or a group prayer. Or, say when you accidentally forget your phone in your kid's diaper bag and the nursery staff get to enjoy your "music" selection.

No, I was not the mom who left her phone in her child's bag, but I was one of the nursery staff in the 12-18 month class at church this morning that got to listen to what I guess is a popular tune on the radio (?) when one of the diaper bags came to life courtesy of a misplaced cell phone. The four of us adults in the room had finally gotten two very fussy little boys calmed down and all the kids in their seats for snack time. It was pleasantly and unusually quiet as the kids munched on goldfish for a while (a rare feat to manage with 10 of them), when very loudly and clear as day we heard something to the effect of, and this is a woman singing mind you, "I kissed a girl and I liked it", which repeated itself a few times as most ringtones do. Besides the fact it was totally random, I can't quite sum up our surprised reactions to that song blaring in a church nursery. I guess irony comes in there somewhere? I was just very thankful that the kids in our room were not quite to the repeat-everything-they-hear stage, or we would have had some major explaining to do to their parents, especially those of little girls! Yikes!

So just a friendly reminder that your ringtone does say a lot about you, and it might not really be the message you'd like people to get! And remember to consider your child's nursery staff in your selection of ringtones..."Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" works for me :)