“All we need is just a little patience.”

- Guns and Roses

Nothing too radical to report today, just a mild observation, so if you feel like just skipping to the funnies, I won't be offended. Anyway, Tuesday night I was being entertained as my buddy was showing me his new phone, and, no joke, this thing is like the Swiss Army knife of cell phones. He can watch cable television, check e-mails, browse the Web, take pictures, and I'm pretty sure it came with a corkscrew, as well.

I'll admit I was intrigued in a novelty sort of way but I couldn't see myself wanting a device that lets me know where all the restaurants in town are, seeing as though I've eaten at most of them anyway. But, as I said, it was a neat little gadget just the same.

The thing that actually made me take notice was when I asked him what happened to his old phone and he replied, “Oh, I got rid of it because it was too slow.” This is a phrase we hear a lot lately; that things aren't fast enough.

From megabyte to kilobyte to gigabytes, it's as if we're all on a high-speed buffet and we just can't fill our plates fast enough. My question though is how fast is too fast?

Are we getting so used to “on demand” living that every activity of our daily lives has to done at warp speed?

Case in point; how many times have you been at a red light and the instant it turns green, someone honks their horn telling you to move?

In the past I'd flip them the bird, but now if I want to really annoy that person, I just go slower. Nothing drives a hurried person crazier than having to wait.

But what do they really expect? It's an Escort, not the Millenium Falcon. I only have five gears and six cylinders so I won't be making the jump to light-speed any time soon.

Here's another one that I find amusing. Go into Wegmans or Wal-Mart on any Sunday and notice the people with overloaded shopping carts walk the front of the store sizing up cashiers like horses at a racetrack trying to determine which is the quickest.

I've even seen these grocery jockeys switch lanes if the cashier even thinks of flicking that light for a price check.

And I'm just as guilty as anyone when it comes to the need for speed. I'm known around the house as the guy who yells at the microwave. But, in my defense, three minutes is kind of a long time to have to wait for popcorn; wouldn't you agree?

So let's try an experiment this week; let's take it down a notch and see what happens. We might just find out that that life isn't about the momentum; but the moments.

Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each Sunday, in the Citizen. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com