In Carraba’s tonight, grabbing a quick meal with the missus, in a booth in the bar section. While waiting for our meals, I happened to pull out my Blackberry to answer a few emails, while my wife was on her iPhone texting.
The family in the booth behind us gets up to leave, when the older woman of the group says, “Look, ha ha, they are texting each other!”
At first, I thought she was joking, but as she was leaving, I looked up at her, and she looked back at me and said, to her poor husband, loud enough for my ears, “It’s a shame people cant talk to each other anymore. Im glad we don’t do that.”
All right:
We weren’t “texting each other”, you stupid old twat. Even if we were, whats it to you anyway?
We weren’t disturbing your meal. We were both in a booth. I know we weren’t disturbing your meal because you didn’t open your yap until you were leaving. If anything, you just annoyed ME while I was enjoying time with my wife.
It’s fucking Carrabas. Not some exclusive white table cloth restaurant in Manhattan, where I could see how browsing on a smart phone might be gouche. Get over yourself.
Watch the liquor. I can tell you must have been drunk because you never looked back when I said loudly across the bar, after your little snide remark, to mind your own fucking business. Maybe what I SHOULD do is take my Blackberry, call the police, and let them know that there is a potential drunk driver on the road.
I didn’t ask for your opinion, anyway.
Dont take it out on me and my wife because we aren’t old cows like you, and take advantage of 21st Century technology. Why don’t you go back to your trailer park, and sit and eat cookies and drink warm milk with what I am sure is your miserable husband, watching reruns on your local syndicated TV UHF channel.
In conclusion, lady, take your sanctimonious ass, and ride out of here on horse you rode in on. At Carraba’s I WILL text whenever, and wherever I want, so FUCK YOU, and anyone else that has a problem with it.
That stinks. If it was wait staff who gave you grief cause you were texting during their daily specials pitch, I’d have trouble with your rant, but screw that lady.
Can I offer some other possible comebacks inspired by the Movie “Sideways”, SNL and Mr. Show:
“Look lady, my mother’s in the hospital and the ICU nurses just sent me an update.”
“Look lady, maybe if you didn’t have those hot dog fingers, you could communicate using something besides yer damn YAPPER!”
“Look lady, I don’t come down to where you work and knock the dick out of your mouth.”
I probably wouldn’t get past “Look lady…” but still, I dream.
I love the first one. It teaches people not to open their flycatcher until they know the shot. Of course, the fact that I have a high intensity job that sometime requires me to frequently check my emails should be good enough for her, not that I would owe her an explanation.
You were answering emails, and she was texting, yet you were enjoying time together in a restaurant?
I doubt I’d have said anything where you could hear it, but I don’t get it either.
And, I’m wondering, what did you expect her to do after you told her “mind your own fucking business”? Come back and kick your ass? That she didn’t shows she’s drunk?
Attending to private electronic devices (for a period longer than necessary to, say, check the time or identify an incoming call) is gauche in the company of others. It’s about being with people; the place doesn’t matter.
There is an exemption of sorts when the device is being employed in the service of your present companion. Such circumstances are recognizable because your companion will be paying attention to you as you find the address of the theater, or whatever.
Of course, saying things about people but not addressed to them, such that they can hear you, is gauche in all circumstances. She was guilty there, though apparently not one to use profanity loudly in public.
I see no reason to suspect that she didn’t have a cell phone of her own in her purse.
Some of my best time with the wife is spent at a Cafe at our local beach, having a late breakfast, reading the papers - and not saying a word to each other other than the occasional comment or “you should read this”. Enjoying someone’s company doesn’t require talking.
My wife and I are together all the time. We talk all the time. I don’t mind if she gets a phone call while we’re out together. It’s not like that’s the only opportunity we have to be together.
I mean, when we were dating it would have been rude. But now that we’ve been married for years we just don’t need to set aside “togethetherness time”, because we’re together so much in the ordinary course of our day.
That is stupid. This is the SDMB, where everyone justifies being an asshole because someone else was an asshole to them first. The lady did the exact same thing to the OP–except she decided to be passive aggressive about it, which, IMO makes it a lot worse.
As for the judging them for texting: Whatever happened to “If it’s between two consenting adults” or “If it’s not hurting you”? I guess it’s perfectly okay with something as inconsequential as homosexual marriage, but not with something as important as what electronic devices someone is allowed to use in your presence.
unless there is someone else with us, mrAru and I pull out our droids and read at the table during dinner, even when out unless it is a seriously upper scale place. I guess it is what happens when one has been married 20 years and together for longer than that =)
I’ve layed into my friends when they start checking their f’ing email while we are sharing dinner. Sometimes they whip out their phone and start texting in the middle of a conversation. That gets me pissed, and I’ll usually say something to them.
But your scenario involves a nosy stranger and you guys are waiting to be seated, not the same thing at all.
