Espionage And Intrigue

I should've known when I saw that you can pay a fee and have the ski resort track your day of skiing by having you wear this monitor. At the end of the day, they give you a souvenir trail map that has all your ski runs highlighted and such. Pretty cool, I guess, if you're into purchasing those kinds of discussion starters.

Then I read where several mobile phone manufacturers now sell models with, in effect, a global positioning chip in them that can be monitered by those with the proper authority to do so. Apparently, this works well for the government (surprise!) or private businesses who are monitoring the whereabouts of their employees. You know, so the boss of a snow-plow company can see when and where or if certain streets were done...things like that. Again, not too bad.

But if you can't see the potential for real abuse here...eeeeek. But for now, I guess it's a practical idea.

Anyway, now the fine folks at (insert your favorite cell phone manufacturer here) have made monitoring teenagers affordable. They are going to market the cell phone/tracker to parents who want to keep up with the whereabouts of their offspring.

Yes, I can see some upsides. I mean, if you're kid is lying in a ditch somewhere after curfew blah blah blah.

Yes, (insert your wireless provider here) will make a bundle if they market this deal right with clever commercials about peace of mind and love and security.

What those commercials won't tell you is that human nature is a peculiar animal. All this really does is make the "espionage intrigue" between parents and teens more high-tech. Like, (say this like you're a grandfather and just pulled a pipe out of your mouth) back in my day, you just called from any phone, told your mom you were at Jimmy's, and hung up.

Then came the service "Star 69." R.E.M. wrote a song about it. All a parent had to do was hit those magic numbers and it would call the place the most recent phone call came from.

Our next salvo was to call from Jimmy's, wait for the Star 69 return call from Mom, and then head out to the party.

And so on, and so on.

Now, does anyone with any brains see teenagers handing their cell phone to their friend who's off to the library before they head out to wherever they're not supposed to be with the people they're not supposed to be with?

Can you see it? A bunch of cell phones on the library steps while the kids are out driving around listening to that poison rock and roll...

"We tried to call. Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"Mom, it's the library. You know they make us put the phones of vibrate and it was in my backpack."

And then (insert your favorite cell phone manufacturer here) creates a heat-sensitive tracker for making sure the phone stays next to body heat...and then the teens strap it to a dog at their friend's house...

And the espionage continues to cause parents to up their monthly contribution to (insert your favorite wireless service provider here).