So I’m in the laundromat, chilling while my stuff is in the big triple washer. Guy I never saw before, don’t know from Adam’s off ox asks me if I have a cell phone.
Yes, I do, and I’ll hand it to a perfect stranger just because he asks. Motherfucker, you need a checkup from the neck up! How is this a reasonable request that you expect me to answer in the affirmative? There’s a payphone on the wall, a place around the corner you can get change. Don’t be a fucking leech.
Or you could politely say no, and move on with life.
Where’s the fun in that?
Or politely say no and then pull it out an make a clearly fake call.
**Random Guy: **Excuse me… do you have a cell phone?
**11811: **Yes… NO! I mean, Fuck off, you snot-sucking bag of pus!
**Random Guy: **Oh, OK, sorry.
<five minutes later>
**Random Guy: **Excuse me… do you have a cell phone?
**Other random guy: **No, I don’t.
**Random Guy: **Here, would you like this one for free? I just got an upgrade on my handset and I can’t bear the thought of throwing the old one away, it’s only six months old, maybe you can use it.
Uh-huh. Where is the “Kingdom of Butter”, anyway? Maybe I can stop by and find someone who’s just traded in his Porsche for a Ferrari.
Handset upgrades are ubiquitous here in the UK; most people who have had a mobile phone for several years will have at least one redundant handset; the phone companies offer ‘free upgrades’ as a way of hooking the subscriber for an additional 12 month contract. Orange gave me a Treo 600 a little while back and I gave my previous handset to someone else (who bought a ‘SIM-only’ contract for a tenner). Charity shops collect redundant mobile handsets in big cardboard drums.
OK, so it’s pretty unlikely that the guy in the laundromat wanted to give something away (it’s even quite likely that 11811 hasn’t quoted him verbatim and he actually said “hey buddy, can I use your cell phone?”). I just thought the statement as posted came across as a bit funny.
“Hey there, pal. Do you have a cellphone?”
“Yep, I do.”
“Did you know they give you BRAIN CANCER!!??!!”
Hopefully they’ve found some way to recycle them.
Like making them into obsolete laptops.
Actually, I did just say no, but in a puzzled voice that I hoped would communicate what an inappropriate request that was to make of a total stranger.
It’s not so much that I’m too polite to get all aggro, but I like to think I’m too smart. And yes, besides mentioning it in the pit, I did go on with my life.
I just ran this scenario through my head and I don’t know if I should be scared by the reason that I decided I would probably say no.
It’s not that I’m afraid he’d break it, or run off with it, or run my minutes up, or anything else like that. It’s just that I’m slowly turning into a mild germaphobe as I get older…
Whether I said yes or no would totally depend on how clean the person looked (which is not a clear indicator of whether or not they are covered in germs, but phobias aren’t typically rational, are they?)
Cisco, if you’re even half as rich as Howard Hughes, you’re exCENtric! 
Otherwise, mebbe you should worry a little.
I asked a stranger if I could use her cellphone once. She said yes so I did. We both lived happily everafter.
Well, i’m not sure about her, never seen her since.
Actually, I’d probably respond to the question with “Why do you ask?”, wherupon the conversation would branch into a number of possibilities:
**Random Guy: **May I use it?
**Me: **No
or
**Random Guy: **Yeah, so have I, aren’t they totally fucking awesome?!
**Me: **Errr… yes, I suppose so…
or
**Random Guy: **Because I just found this one on the floor and I wondered if you’d dropped yours
**Me: **<checks pockets> Ooops, thanks!
No, they don’t - that’s just a scare-mongering urban legend. Hand cancer, now that’s a different story…
Is it ever acceptable to try to borrow a phone? I mean, obviously if it’s an emergency, then say so, but if it’s urgent to you, but not lifethreatening?
I mean, I get why it’s presumptuous, and I’d never have the nerve myself, but if someone I had a reasonable expectation that they couldn’t steal it asked in a place where speaking to someone wasn’t inherently eccentric or threatening, and offered to pay for the cost of the call, then I might well let them if they looked decent. I mean, it’d be nice if someone’d do that for me, wouldn’t it?
And if you were going to, what should you say? You can start with “I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if…” but that falls rather flat if they say “I’d love to but i don’t have one” so starting with the question to set the tone is reasonable.
Of course, some assholes don’t realise this, and think they DESERVE the loan, and just say “hand it over, what are you, selfish?” and deserve pitting, but we don’t have enough info yet to know which this guy was.
If his body language was obnoxious, or the laundromat was a particularly threatening one where everyone goes armed and not talk to each other, then no way, but if he’s seen 11811 around there before, then he could be just slightly overoptimistic.
FTR, I don’t generally lend out my cell phone to strangers. I did make a 911 call for someone whose car was dead on the side of the road.
Laundromat guy had, to my knowledge, not seen me before either there or elsewhere. This both rather buries the needle on the overopimistimeter and stresses the bearings and expansion joints on the presumpuosity flux converter.
:smack:
overoptimistimeter
I like Mangetout’s take on all this. If everything were predictable, you’d already know that I’m going to end this post with the word.
<Points and laughs at 11811>
Heh, he said overopimistimeter. What a doofus. 