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Thursday, June 01, 2006

Can You Hear Me Now?

Unfortunately, yes, I can. And it’s rather irritating.

Wednesday, May 24th, approximately 3:00pm.

On this day I once again found myself on New York’s Upper Eastside at Columbia Presby, for work. Based on a previous conversation with Iced Tea Not Coke, I decided to Acela and see what that was all about….and I’d get home quicker which is always nice. Being the social misfit that I am, I tried to position myself and my bag so no one would sit next to me. Of course it didn’t work. I ended up with a very tall, thin, older man beside me. I tried to conceal my annoyance when he showed up beside my row but I’m not sure how successful I was. I actually felt a little bad about that and considered striking up a conversation with him. Instead, I just gave him one of those tight-lipped, no teeth showing, don’t take this as an invitation to talk smiles. I even made eye contact for a nanosecond or two.

I stopped beating myself up over my unwillingness to chat with him when the cell phone pages began 20 minutes into the ride and continued right into 30th Street station. Why he wouldn’t put the thing on vibrate I have no idea. He made a big production every time it went off, with the sighing and all. I guess that was to let me know that he was as annoyed as I was….as if to say, “I KNOW, I am just SO popular and needed…they never let me rest.”

In my head, I went through several “polite and verging on cute” ways to ask him to put the damn thing on vibrate – they got increasingly mean.

#1 *with a dimplish smile – and I don’t have dimples – and using my phone as a prop* “Do you know how to put this phone on vibrate? I just got it and haven’t figured it out but really don’t want to annoy other people on the train.” *add eyelash flutter and blonde head cocked to side for effect*
#2 *with the sympathetic smile* “You know, I do the same thing. I’m always forgetting how to set my phone to vibrate.”
#3 *the sarcasm starts to seep in and I give him the nose wrinkle and little head shake* “Don’t you hate when you set your phone to vibrate and it just keeps ringing?”
#4 *heavier sarcasm now, but still just enough so that he doesn’t know if I’m TRULY giving him a hard time* “Is that an older model without the vibrate feature?”
#5 *ripping the phone from his hands* “Are you an idiot? Give me that thing. I can show you how to set that to vibrate.”

The incoming pages/calls (whatever) were bad enough. Then he decided to reply.

Doo doo doodoo doo doodoodooo…..doo….doo…….doo doo………doo…………………………doo….doo…………………………doo………doo........doo................................doo.........doo doo. (I can only venture a guess that it was a very difficult word to spell.) Doodoo doo doo doodoodoo (backspace backspace backspace). Doooooo (stuck key)….doo doo…doo ….doo …..doo doo doo. Doo.

Can’t he see I’m trying to play Solitaire here?!!!

Briiiinnnngggg.

Damn it!

posted by Cherry Indigo (Cindy) @ 6/01/2006 11:58:00 PM

1 Comments:

At 6/05/2006 01:55:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

why oh why are people so rude and lacking in manners?! It drives me NUTS!

 

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