Hey, you! With the cell phone, with the incoming call!
Yeah, so this isn’t a theatre, fine, I’ll grant the efficiency and convenience to your callers of you being accessible via cell phone. I’ve never owned one and have no urge to get one, but I wouldn’t argue that they don’t have their place.
But…
WHAT THE FUCK is with you pulling the thing out and holding it in the palm of your hands while it continues to beeble beeble beeble la dotti dah deedle its way through your fucking triple-annoying diarrhea-squirting ringtone TWICE before you deign to flip it open and say “Kirk here” or whatever you folks do with those damn things?
Like curved shards of broken perfume-bottle glass glitting deeper into the soles your bleeding feet as you try to hobble-hop your way to tubside, those horrid jingly-smarmy ringtones cut right into my ears and brain. ***ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE! *** Or if you feel you need to ponder the advisability of taking this call for a moment or two, SWITCH OFF THE FUCKING SOUND, there’s a switch somewhere, “vibrate mode” or some such thing, use it!
You got a finite allotment of beebles. I don’t know how many you get but it’s definitely limited, and when you let it beeble one beeble too many I’m snatching it, running down the hall screaming “BOMB!!!”, and I’m throwing it in the toilet.
Waiting? What waiting? When my phone rings the caller ID happens simultaneously. Maybe he’s just a slow reader.
Don’t get me started on ring tones. Personally I just want my phone to ring like a phone or vibrate. I don’t want it to sing me a song or play me a ditty or chant or recite poetry or warble like a turtledove, I just want it to ring. Call me old-fashioned.
I just tested, and it takes about three or four seconds for my Caller ID to show up on my cell phone. Of course, mine’s always on vibrate, so it doesn’t disturb others. I know that there is also a delay with my home phone.
The delay on the home phone is because the info is sent after the 1st ring, IIRC.
I have no idea why there’s a delay on a cell phone call. You wouldn’t still be on one of the very first analog networks, are you? Are they even still around?
If TWICE drives you mad mad mad, what would you have done in the restaurant the other day when a nearby cellphone slave’s device went doodle-beep la-da beeble beeble beeble HALF A DOZEN TIMES before you finally COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE and cried out in an anguished voice STOP THE MADNESS!!! causing everyone else in your section to glance over in amazement or pretend that there was something fascinating in the direction of their shoes, hmm? HMMMMM??!?!?!?
Okay. Let’s write down some cellphone ettiquette, here.
First of all, if at all possible, turn off your phone. I understand that this is not always feasible; heck, I have to leave mine on, sometimes. If possible, put it on vibrate. If you are unable to deal with this, and MUST have your phone on vibrate, please follow these rules:
When your cellphone goes off, you may not ignore it. Answer the damn thing, or at least turn off the ringer. If you don’t feel it necessary to pick up the phone when it rings, then you don’t need it on in the first place.
Do not pick up your phone and start into your nice loud phone conversation. You may use a low voice to utter the sentence “Hey, I’m in such-and-such a place, hang on for a sec while I go outside,” and then you must shut up until you are in a place that will not allow you to disturb other customers. “Hey, can I call you back later?” is also acceptable.
When you are checking out, you may not speak on the cellphone while handling transactions with the cashier. This is incredibly rude. You may repeat “Hey, I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” but that is all.
Indoor voices, people. I’ve seen five-year-olds who understand this concept better than many cell-phone users. I really don’t want to listen to your screamed cell-phone conversation.
Students: Stop text-messaging in class. Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. It won’t be fair to the rest of us when your antics get cellphones banned for all students.
Oh yes, and a quick note to my rather clueless father:
My mother leaves her cellphone on vibrate when we go to the movies in case there’s an emergency or something at home. When you called her the other day, she abided by all of the cellphone ettiquette rules listed above, quickly exiting the theatre to take your call in case it was important. Yay mom! However, Dad, your reason for calling and interrupting, which was asking what was for dinner, was not appropriate. Really, would it kill you to wait until she got home to ask? Or gasp volunteer to handle dinner yourself instead of relying on her?*
*Just so long as you don’t cook over open flames- I remember the last time you tried to “help” me and caught the food on fire.
I only use ringtones because I don’t have a very good ability to find where a sound is coming from. So, if I use a standard ringtone, I don’t know if it’s my phone or someone else’s ringing.
I don’t know the digital mobile phone protocols, but every other digital telephony protocol I’ve worked with sends the call ID info in the same message that would tell the phone to ring. In other words, If the phone knows to ring, it should already know who’s making it ring. Strange stuff.
For the love of all that is holy, public transit is NOT an appropriate place to scroll through all your possible ringtones.
The first time this happened I got all steamed and then forgot about it, thinking it was an isolated incident. I mean, who but a uniquely inconsiderate fool would do such a thing?
My mistake. It’s happened so often now I have lost count. There are more uniquely inconsiderate fools than I thought possible, and I have long been aware of vast quantities and varieties of inconsiderate fools.
This sounds like quite an over-reaction to me. In a public place, shouldn’t you expect noise? Is it that they hit your ringtone, and you get fooled into thinking your phone is ringing? Not sure what the big deal is.
Cell phones come with a number of “default” ring tones, and the user of said phone needs to pick one.
To do this, they often scroll through the possibilities. As in:
Phone: *Bleepity bleepity bleep *
User, to self: No, I don’t like that one.
Phone: Boop-boop-e-doop
User: No good
Phone: Doo do do doo do do doo
User: Nope
Phone: Rama-lama-ding-dong
User: Hmm …
Phone: [William Tell overture, in bleep form]
User: Not good enough
Phone: Ring! Ring!
User: Uncool
Phone:Ringalingalingalingaling
User: Possibility.
Phone: [Beethoven’s Ninth]
User: Bah.
Phone: Rama-lama-ding-dong
User: I dunno … maybe I like
Phone: Boop-boop-e-doop
User: Wait, have I heard this one yet?
Phone: [That annoying Outkast song]
User: I can’t decide between
Phone: Rama-lama-ding-dong
User: and
Phone: Ringalingalingalingaling
User to friend: Hey, what do you think of
Phone: [That annoying Outkast song]
Friend: Hey, listen to the one I’ve got
Friend’s Phone: [that annoying Jay-Z song]
Do not leave your cellphone, turned on, on your desk, while you go into a 2 hr meeting. I’m not going to answer it, except to tell someone to go fuck off.
Yeah, well over here, there are no shortage of annoying people who have ringtones on their Nextels or Boost phones.
So on the bus I get:
bleepideep
Asshole 1:(in the back of the bus) Yea son, w’sup? eep!
Asshole 2 (somewhere else): Nuttin much… yo where you at? bleepideep
Asshole 1: On da bus, n’nat shit. eep!
And the conversation continues.
You know how in the 80’s, people used to carry around boomboxes? Well, people are carrying their cellphones around with them, blasting their damn hippity hoppity music, scanning through them on the bus and having their friends comment [“yo son, dat shit’s hot… play it louda” “Naa… that shit’s wack”].