Yay-my first post on the (yet again) new site!
Calls I've overheard that made my jaw drop: 1) College students making phone calls from the bathroom stalls. They weren't on the phone when they entered, and the phone didn't ring while they were in the stall, they actually made the phone calls from the stall. (This has, sadly enough, happened on several occasions.) Can't you wait 30 seconds before calling somebody?
2) Young girl (late teens) behind me on a 5 hour train trip, talking with her grandmother. She spoke loudly enough for the entire train car to hear her: "So I really want to kick Jane Doe's a@@, but I'm not going to. Grandma! I'm not that stupid grandma! I'm not going to get in trouble again! You're so dumb! I just got out of jail yesterday, grandma! And it wasn't my fault! And I'm not stupid enough to go right back in. So I'm not going to kick Jane Doe's a@@ even though she deserves it, the little [insert more expletives here]." I wanted to tell her to quiet down, but since I knew from the conversation that she had no problem swearing and yelling at her grandmother, that she had just gotten out of jail the day before, and that she was in a fighting mood, I thought I might get decked just for asking. Luckily she got off the phone after about 20 minutes and slept for the rest of the train ride.
And, er, I have to admit that I was the bad cell phone user last night. I need a big slap on the wrist. I was talking on the phone when I got on the bus for a twenty minute ride home (with no other stops for riders to get on). When I got on, I was the only person on the bus, and I was sitting all the way in the back. The bus is pretty noisy, so it's not easy to hear other people, even if you're talking directly to them. (That's my feeble attempt at excusing my inexcusable behavior. But I know it was inexcusable.) Anyway, the phone conversation turned to issues of possible sterility, and whether my fiancee and I can have kids. (We don't want kids, so it's not really a problem). I was so engrossed in the conversation that I didn't realize somebody else had gotten on the bus (while we were still sitting at the curb before leaving) and had sat in the seat directly in front of me. When I got off the phone, I felt horrible, realizing that there was somebody in front of me who might have overheard the conversation! Because the bus is so noisy, I'm hoping she didn't hear it (as I said, it can be difficult to hear people when you talk directly to them), but I was also concerned that, because the bus was so noisy, I was talking louder than usual. Erp.
So, all of you who are annoyed at bad cell phone users, feel free to take your aggressions out on me. And although I oftentimes wonder what people are thinking when they have ultra-personal cell phone conversations in public, apparently sometimes people (i.e., me) just have temporary brain blip that causes them to forget where they are!
