I went to the dentist yesterday morning, wherein they had a helpful sign to remind me to turn my cell phone off. Today, I realized that my cell phone was still off. The same thing happens when I go to the movies. Or when I’m anywhere that respectfully requests that I turn my cell phone off.

Cell phones have been around for quite a while now and this has plagued me for quite a while, too. My thought a couple weeks ago was “How come movie theaters never remind you to turn your cell phone back on?”

Then again, movie theaters might if you stay until the very, very end, which since the advent of IMDB I do not.

Here’s my question for today, though: Why can’t I tell my cell phone to turn off for a specified period of time? If I’m at the movie theater, I can say “three hours”. I know that the cell phone is at least somewhat cogniscent when it’s off because if I set the alarm it will go off whether the cell phone was on or off at the time. My workaround to remembering to turn the cell phone back on has been to set an alarm to remind myself to do so. Sometimes I forget. I’m like that sometimes.

Anyhow, considering everything that cell phones can do, how come not this basic piece of functionality?