Keep in Touch, Even if You're On the Run

After conducting a small survey, I have determined that the sports accessory of choice among New Russians is the portable phone.


These handy gadgets made their debut in restaurants at least two years ago; it seems I never could get through dinner without the local businessman at the next table reaching into his briefcase, taking out his phone, and shouting into the mouthpiece for an hour or more.


But I had never seen anyone on the running machine trying to balance the receiver, dial, and still keep up the pace. Until a few weeks ago, that is. Now it is all the rage.


I could, maybe, understand that the busy executive might not want to be separated from his empire-building concerns for the hour or so it takes for him to work out. And the movers and shakers in the new Russia have to stay in touch, right?


But the upscale businessman-athlete, sporting the latest in prestige spandex sports gear, is not calling his broker. He is taking time out between his biceps curls and stomach crunches to call his girlfriend, his buddy or his wife (sometimes all three).


I try not to eavesdrop, really. But I get so caught up in the twists and turns of my fellow-perspirers' love lives that I sometimes spend hours on the stair-climber just waiting to hear what happens next.


I do not mean to suggest that this is a strictly male phenomenon. New Russians come in both sexes. The other evening I was treated to a long list of Lena's complaints about Misha, as she gave advice to Tanya. Lena, fresh from the shower, was chattering away a mile a minute into her portable phone while she dressed and put on her make-up. By the end, I think, the locker-room consensus was that Lena should dump the boorish and offensive Misha, and that the whining Tanya should get a life. But, since I heard only one side of the conversation, I may be being unfair to Tanya.


There are probably very good reasons why portable phones are so popular in Moscow now. If you've ever tried to call anyone from a public phone booth, you may have longed for one yourself. Trying to find a taksofon that works and that takes some kind of currency that is still in circulation is a challenge that can defeat the heartiest of souls.


But portable phones are getting out of control. Just yesterday I got a call from my old friend Fedya, who has become a born-again self-actualization specialist, after sitting through some weekend seminar that teaches you to, as Fedya put it, "be, then do, then have." Funny, I thought Fedya was doing just fine on all of those levels, but apparently now he is even better.


"I now know that I am the smartest, handsomest, most successful man in the world," he said smugly. "That must be some course," I replied, but my sarcasm was lost on Fedya, whose sense of humor seems to have been subsumed in the first flush of self-actualization. He asked if he could come over, and I agreed, until he told me he would be bringing both wife and mistress with him. "We are all friends now," he said. "We went through the seminar together."


This was just a bit much for non-self-actualized me. I was about to tell him so, when I heard the sound of running water. "Where are you?" I asked suspiciously. "I'm taking a bath," he replied. "I bought a portable phone." I hung up on him.