Can you hear you now? Can I HEAR you now???
Why yes I can freaking can hear you now, you are in the middle of a public place having a private conversation! I am amazed by the overall lack of common courtesy and manners in this day and age. No one says excuse me or uses the turn signals on their car. No one bothers to wrangle their children when they are pulling stuff off the shelves and throwing them on the floor or calm them when they are screaming their fool heads off. People openly scream profanities and improper comments hoping for a look or better yet a confrontation. They cut in front of you in lines and pitch hissy fits when they try to get away with something they know is wrong. Working in retail and being an avid people watcher I see the worst that humanity has to offer when it comes to the very basic in etiquette. My biggest pet peeve is cell phones. Yesterday I went to the movies and in the middle of a tense scene a man in the front of the theater took a call and started talking very loudly. I was infuriated as were many in the theater who were doing their best to shhhhh the man without totally loosing their concentration on the film. He continued to talk until he was good and ready to quit and when he was done talking guess what he did??? He got up and left the theater and NEVER came back! This happens quite often actually but this case was to the extreme but in all cases answering a call in the theater is completely unacceptable. There are postings all over the theater about cell phone use, there is even little mini movies that they show you after the previews telling you to PLEASE TURN YOUR CELL PHONES OFF!! I'll be honest I don't care if World War Three has started around us when your in the theater turn your phone to off (or at the very least SILENT). If a call comes in and you HAVE to take it. Go outside. Your not watching the movie if you are talking anyway so there is no need to ruin the experience for everyone in the theater because you are a putz. Movie theaters (or Broadway shows.. yeah I've been to a show where a cell has started ringing) are but just one place where people have no regard for others when it comes to their cell phones. They honestly have taken over the lives of most people. They are glued to their hand or their ear and are constantly being checked for messages or texts. You totally loose your dinner companion to a rapid succession of important text messages or a call from the significant other on the state of milk in the refrigerator. People stop in the middle of busy walkways, door ways and in front of escalators to get their fix, not even considering that they are keeping others from getting where they need to go. They have their ringers up so loud (or to the most annoying setting) that they could wake the dead. I have been privy to conversations about cheating spouses,STD's and most recently a girl in a dressing room at Macy's who went into detail about her upcoming incarceration for assault (yes I stayed where I was until I was sure she was in a dressing room and I could get away safely). Yeah there are many many conversations that I have heard snippets of that I REALLY REALLY wish I hadn't. I also love those little ear pieces. I always think that people are talking to themselves or worse yet at times me and once I almost got in a fight with a woman who was walking behind me. She yelled out What a Fucking Bitch and I thought she was talking to me. I turned around with fire in my eyes and a flair in my nose to see a little blue blinking light coming off the side of her head. She of course was oblivious and just kept right on walking... I have almost been run off the road and cut off by men and woman swerving through traffic chatting away like they were sitting on the couch at home instead of behind the wheel of a two ton potential killing machine. I see campaigns now about cell phone usage when driving. Making a personal commitment to not talk or text when behind the wheel. Some states have banned it or attached fines to cell phone usage. All lovely ideas but those who honestly think cell phones and driving do not mix (or actually obey the other laws of the road) already DON'T talk or text while driving. People tell me they have to have their cells, that they have to be reachable at all times. It makes me wonder what people did before we had cell phones. It makes me wonder how the poor people of this world who have yet to succumb to this epidemic handle emergencies and crisis. For the record I own and use a cell phone. It is a pay as you go number because frankly I have no need for a pay out the ass minutes plan. I recently upgraded to what most people would think is an obsolete phone only because my other phone was falling apart. I take an occasional call. Most are never picked up cause I leave my phone in my handbag or on the counter (on vibrate or silent). I call back on most occasions on my home phone. Just about every conversation (more than a couple of minutes tops) should be handled in private . I am sure that my lack of reachability ganks on the nerves of the few people on my contact list that actually try to reach me on my cell but hey I've told ya to call me at home and that my phone is not attached to my hip. I have never taken a call that I would say involved a emergency. I text more than I talk but I will excuse myself if in others company or involve them in the text conversation (if it is someone they know as well) and when in public places I find a place off to the side out of peoples way to answer my texts. I have had some pretty intense conversations by text so I suppose I should be grateful for those who do as I do and text their anger,frustration or assassination attempts instead of vocalizing them. I wish I could say I was hopeful that people would regain some respect for others when it comes to their cell phone usage. But I really don't. This week while at work I noticed a new trend. People walking past me with the MP3 players on their phones a blaring. Oh how I look forward to a summer of Booty shorts and booty music. You just gotta LOVE it!
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