If I see another kid walking in a mall, driving down the street or, generally, anywhere out in public hunched over, with his or her head glued to a phone/computer device, with thumbs rattling away at the keyboard as if the very planet were at stake, I just may have to pull a Texas bell tower.

Just lock and load and blast every one of those godforsaken computer-texting-pieces-of-Microsoft-crap to hell and back – even if it means taking a few teenaged thumbs along the way.

I’ve staggered through this rattrap of a world for almost 60 years, forced to consume every piece of cow dung and smelly shred of garbage heaped upon my plate. But this one may have finally sent me in search of something devised by ol’ Sam Colt.

It’s the very essence of obscene. A young mind, relatively new to the world, being exposed to its wonders – the beauty of nature, the aesthetics of the human form, the artistic  creations of man – and instead, the only planetary article worth inspection is some eight-inch-by-six-inch piece of plastic?

And for what? To “talk” to someone?

News Flash, Einstein. You have a phone in your hand.

Now really, jerk-offs, are you so ego-driven and self-centered that you believe every thought that sashays across your cerebellum is so mind-numbingly brilliant, relevant and unique that it has to be shared? If those endless texts that seem so vitally important to you were truly that wonderful and vibrant, we could put the kibosh on all of this claptrap about our supposed inferior educational system and start worrying about important things like the new prime time TV slate this fall. After all, if the next generation is so rich with brilliant ideas, we’ll be so far ahead of the rest of the world, intellectually, in every aspect of human existence, that China, Japan, Europe and every other person on every other piece of soil on the planet will be looking up at American asses for the remainder of eternity.

But the fact is, the drivel that passes for communicative texting consists of such enthralling rhetoric as, “Just got down the escalator, saw the cutest guy, should I go with blue or yellow nail polish tomorrow?”

Wow, move over Mr. Hemingway, I think we have the next great literary mind in our midst.

How about joining the human race for about six seconds and enjoying the tangible things that surround you? How about smelling a freshly mown lawn or climbing a tree? How about, for Chrissakes, just reading the menu at a Chick-Fil-A?

Hell, crawling around on the ground and shooting marbles would have to be a better option to telling your BFF that mom’s serving up meat loaf for dinner again.

I can’t count how many times I’ve been in the park, out to dinner, at a show, even on the beach, and instead of looking around and enjoying a feeling of community with my surroundings, I’m looking at dozens of brain-dead Quasimodos battering away at their Blueberrys like mentally challenged typists trying to finish a book report.

The ambiance of the moment? Apparently, it ain’t as interesting as repeating the events of the day with the person who was there with you in the first place.

The world, with all of its dreck, still has its moments of fascination and wonder. There are still plenty of gorgeous trinkets to be found under the trash heap.

But you’ll never realize that if your head is buried in IBM’s latest thousand-dollar trinket.

It’s coming, texters, the day is coming.

Just keep it up and there’ll be a BFD whizzing past your heads.

Then it’ll be my turn to LOL.