Yes - she was sniffing and sucking - I had forgot that bit, oddly enough…
Why is it no ones ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s alway just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
I’m just posting that because I think “Where’s my complementary limo for being me?” is a great line, and I figured Eve wouldn’t mind a little Dorothy Parker :).
I miss the days before cell phones, when you could just pity the poor souls who sat on the bus talking loudly to someone who wasn’t there, rather than despise them.
Ah yes, cell phones on trains. Almost enough to make me violent. The worst offenders on the New York to Baltimore route are those that sit in the Quiet Car (the one with signs saying no cell phone use) and proceed to yak away for the entire trip on conference calls, etc.
I’m sorry, but unless you are the only doctor in the world who knows how to treat the current life-threatening malady of some powerful world leader, you’re just not that important. Find another car or wait till the damn trip is over.
The best half-convesation I’ve ever heard, on the bus, leaving campus:
<ring…ring…>
Hello?
Yeah, I’m on the bus…
Uh-huh, you’re in class, and you’re bored? Why don’t you leave class, then?
Well, I’m on the bus, but it hasn’t left yet. I could get off and meet you…
No? OK, then. bye.
[10 minutes later]
<ring… ring…>
Hello?
Uh-huh, you’ve now left class?
Right, but the bus left 10 minutes ago, so I’m not on campus anymore…
Uh-huh. OK, bye…
Well, okay, maybe this is why they have to scream.
But really, what is wrong with someone having a conversation in a normal tone of voice, on a cell phone? Why is it worse than if they have a conversation with their seatmate?
Why is it bad if it’s in a restaurant? Sure it’s rude if you’re on your phone and you’re sitting with a bunch of friends, but it’s rude to your friends–not to total strangers. Again, not if you’re yelling.
I love cell phones because I talk to myself ALL the time–and with gestures and facial expressions and everything. Now, people simply assume that I’m on a cellphone (I hope). I think that’s better. Maybe not.
The headphones thing drives me crazy. The point of headphones is so other people aren’t forced to listen to your shitty music. I was actually in class last semester when this girl walked in wearing headphones that were so loud I actually jumped when she walked in. The professor stopped lecturing and everyone turned and stared at her as she walked to the far end of the room and the front of the class with her headphones blaring. Yes, some people really are that oblivious. :rolleyes:
I was at the movies last weekend and some asshat in front of me whipped out his cell phone right after the movie started and had the following conversation…
Yeah, I’m in the middle…I dunno, get me some popcorn…oh, and a soda…no, I don’t know what kind…yeah…aight, hurry up dude!!
Please note this conversation although short, was SHOUTED AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS!
I was two seconds away from ripping that damn phone out of his hands and throwing it. :mad:
Eve, I just wanted to say that you’re my new hero. Calling that guy at home was classic.
I’ve always been tempted to tell these people, “You know, you should upgrade to a better phone so you don’t have to scream. Or do you have a bad service provider?”
When someone’s subjecting the car to their phone’s ringer (whether by not answering it or by playing with the tunes) I have been known to yell “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANSWER IT OR SHUT IT OFF.”
And it’s not as though you have to yell at all. I remember sitting in a friend’s car, listening to his car stereo at an inappropriately loud level, and my friend, sitting next to me, felt his phone ring, answered it, and had a conversation, all without my noticing. He didn’t even turn down the radio. The noise-cancelling tech in these newer handsets is so advanced that you barely have to speak at all. In addition, it seems my handset compresses the incoming signal, so yelling or whispering, it’s all the same volume. So…the yelling…it does nothing!
ROFL! I was just complaining about this same exact thing in my LJ. My favorite baseball memory was when a few seats down from us (day game) there was a with his buddies who had obviously skipped out of work for the day, and the guy in question was dressed in what I call “business dandy” attire. Tres fashonible pinky/coral severely pressed shirt, pricey slacks pressed and pleated just so, little flippy cell phone that he answered approximately 50 times in the first inning alone.
Finally some guy like 4 rows behind him said “Geez, buddy. Either watch the game or go back to work!” The phone guy sniffed “well at least I HAVE a job” or something weak like that. The heckler said “what, you think because I don’t wear a little “outfit” I don’t have a job?” The whole section roared with laughter at him. He shut up for a couple innings and then I guess decided he’d had enough of us common folk and left.
I’m not surprised, you’re awesome for doing that!!!
"The worst offenders on the New York to Baltimore route are those that sit in the Quiet Car . . . "
They do this on the *Quiet Car? *Please tell me they’re not allowed to get away with this–doesn’t anyone approach them, explain the meaning of the word “quiet,” and offer to toss them off the train?! If not, why the hell not?
And, Cicada2003, as I said in my OP, no one objects to people having conversations in a normal tone of voice. This is about the all-too-prevalent screamers.
Man, that’s beautiful.
Unfortunately, it is something I’ll never see at Pac Bell Park. I think more cell-phone calls are taken than cups of beer drunk (drank? drinkened?). “I’m at the game!” “I’m at the game!” Ugh. So am I, and I actually give a shit about that fact, now shut up!
Then again, a couple of good whaps with the otherwise-evil TunderStix could be all I need.
Oh, they do throw them off. Right out the window. The route from Baltimore to New York is littered with corpses and broken cell phones. 
Okay, I’m kidding. But on the Baltimore-DC route they are quite strict, I hear.
**That’s what I don’t get. My cell phone is a basic freebie Nokia, and I use Verizon, the basic $25-a-month plan. I never have to yell, and I hardly ever have put the antenna up. What kind of cheesy service provider do all the screamers have? Are they the ones buying cell phones and the pay-as-you-go plans at the 7-11?
Yes ** Eve**, they do it on the Quiet Car. And, alas, I was too much of a non confrontational coward to do anything about it–as was everyone else in that car (though BiblioCat’s graphic was amusing).
To be fair, I’ve only traveled on that train during commuter hours and the conversations were work-related. But, c’mon, it’s the Quiet Car!
Obviously a normal volume conversation isn’t an annoyance (well, maybe on the Quiet Car), it’s those that are screaming into the phones that are annoying and those that are talking in places/at times when one shouldn’t be (e.g. in a movie theater, in class, etc.)
I always mutter something like shut up as I walk past, yes I know its sorta rude, but so is screaming down a phone…
A guy I used to go to college wih one time,call him Brian(cos thats his name), was at the cinema when a group of about 14/15 year olds were sat behind him and half way through a phone went off, the guy answered it and about 15 minutes later, Brian turns around and asks him to shut the hell up, the guy just takes the piss outta Brian, so Brian punched him on the nose. Cinema cheered! End Result? little smart ass got kicked out of the movie and Brian watched in peace:)
It seems like this is a wholly American phenomenon. I see it all the time here at home (I have no problems whatsoever hearing on my cell phone, or being heard).
When I was in Europe (western, as in France and I think England, though I’m not sure), if someone got a call on their cell phone, they’d talk in a nice quiet, normal voice which you could barely hear because they turned away to be more private. Do they just have been service over there or are we just hugely loud and uncaring over here?(well yes as a matter of fact…)
I was in one of those stadium-seating movie theatres once (I think we were watching Twister), and in the middle of one of the tensest quiet parts of the film, some guy’s cell phone rings in one of the back rows, and he answers it and starts talking. I turned around and said loudly “Tell them you’re BUSY!” There was a pause, then a brief muffled giggle from the rest of the audience, but at least he finally walked out of the theater (still talking on his cell)
I got the idea from an article I read where someone in the orchestra section answered their cell phone during a play - one of the actors stopped his dialogue, turned to the culprit, said that, and went back into his lines.
When I used to take the commuter home, I’d often be on the last train out, the 10:30 one. It’d be empty, and quiet, with everyone either asleep or staring happily into space. There was always someone who did the obligatory “I’m on the train!” conversation, like they wanted a reward or something. I used to know the night conductors, so when they got obnoxious, I’d slip into the empty conductor car in the front, and sleep in peace.
I miss having connections.
I believe I can top even this one. Not long ago, I had the dubious pleasure of sitting beside a dedicated nosepicker on a three-hour flight. I only wish he’d have eaten his bounty; instead, he wiped it on his pantsleg, which, given we were on a Southwest Airlines plane, was about two centimeters away from my own leg.
People keep telling me I need to get a cellphone. What they don’t know is that one of the main reasons I leave the house at all is to avoid their calls. It’s also the sole reason I have an answering machine.