Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Talk on Your Cell Phone in the Subway


I am so vexed right now.

Minorities! Please!

Stop talking on your cell phones in the subway.

Now, like many a straphanger, I like to read the paper, and some literature, especially if its a long commute, on my way to work and back home. But, for those of you who feel the same way that I do, tell me, how does it feel to get into the groove of an article or an essay or a book, only to be interrupted by somebody who decides to pick up their phone. And why is it too, that the phone is often a walkie-talkie phone. Unlike a regular phone call, a walkie-talkie phone boasts a beeping function to announce the successful transmittal of a message, and you are not left to wonder what the other party is saying, no no no, dear straphanger, you can leave your imagination behind, the phone announces publicly all that the missing interlocutor states using a speaker function. Why I need to know Javier's latest philanderings is not only beyond me, it frustrates me. And why you'd want to make this public, I have no idea!

Altogether, the amount of interruptions such phone calls cause can be responsible, more than religion, for stunting the progress of humanity. Who knows what societal problems could have been solved, how many diseases cured, how many inspired pieces of prose and art created, if it were not for that infernal beep, those eye-twitch inducing updates on what you are going to do in cohoots with your girl to Javier for cheating on you.

What's worst is that in return of my glare i get a look of disbelief and frustration, as if I were the nuisance. Ay Dios Mio!

If the MTA and whatever other invested corporations are succesful in their plans to make all of the subway cell phone ready--read: all underground lines--straphangers, be ready for a return to the dark ages. We shall be ruled by a insouciant band of leaders who transmit edicts via mass-message over walkie-talkie phones, and not only will we acknowledge that massive beep in unison as our call to arms to get Javier for disrespecting our girl, we will know that beep as God.

Oh, and don't pick up the phone to tell someone that you can't talk to them because you are on the subway. "The reception is bad, we might get cut off. But let's talk until then....hello.....hello....hello....hello." That's just irksome to all parties involved, you, your caller and your fellow straphangers.

Minorities, please stop talking on your phones in the subway, because everybody is just gonna think that you are inconsiderate and not worthy of joining the ranks of the civilized.

How will you get that job?

Of course, not just minorities do this, but again, fellow minorities, I'm only concerned about you. Thank me later. Ciao.

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