Phone Zombie

It starts innocently. Your phone buzzes once, and someone has added you to a group chat with a cheerful name like "Weekend Plans!!!" and eleven people you sort of know. You did not apply for this job. There was no interview, no consent form, and definitely no exit interview scheduled. Congratulations, you live here now.

There is a special kind of traffic jam that has nothing to do with cars. It happens on a sidewalk, in a grocery aisle, and right at the bottom of an escalator, and it is caused by one person who has stopped moving entirely because a phone has asked for their full attention.

Meet the phone zombie. Eyes down, thumbs busy, feet technically still attached to the ground but no longer participating in the journey. The rest of us are expected to navigate around them like they are a decorative pillar that somebody installed in the middle of the walkway.

He is in the cereal aisle, holding his phone flat in front of his face like a waiter presenting a dish, and he is having a conversation at full volume. Not a private conversation that got loud — a public performance. We are all on this call now. The call includes a woman named Deb, and Deb is also on speaker, and Deb has opinions about the HOA.