Blabber-walking.
Yesterday, during my morning walk, I encountered a total of eleven people. By “encountered,†I am referring to people who were on the same side of the street as I was and who were walking in the opposite direction.
Of the eleven people I encountered, NINE of them were talking on call phones while walking. Now, this was a Saturday morning, and from the smatterings of conversation I could hear before, during and after our brief encounter, none of them appeared to be a businessperson discussing business, unless, of course, you define “business†as an enterprise involving the wearing a ski mask and a using a gun, or the sale of narcotics, in which case, at least three of them fit the bill.
For a few minutes, I thought that the number of blabbers might only be eight, until I got closer to a woman blabber to see that she was blabbing into one of things that’s welded to your ear, enabling hands-free blabbing during all of one’s waking hours.
I found myself wondering what in Christ’s name was so important that it required these people to be blabbing while walking down the street on a Saturday morning. Then I figured that it must be that certain people have “free weekend minutes,†and maybe that’s what was going on, the mindset being that, if something is “free,†I want mine, and I want a lot of it — sort of like the “free government cheese†debacle years ago.
Call me insensitive, but I could not help but wonder how many of the cell phone blabber-walkers are currently receiving welfare. I would like to think that none of them are, but I’ve lived here long enough to have serious doubts about that.
Saturday morning, hands-free, blabber-walking. It’s a great country.
Sometimes I say “Are you talking to me?” as the hands-free users babbling to themselves walk past me, and they look real irritated.
Comment by dogette — June 5, 2005 @ 6:09 pm
I’m still taken aback by cell-phone yammerers acting as though they’re in a secluded, sound-proofed location. Never has the phrase ‘private conversation’ been so oxymoronic.
Comment by aelfheld — June 5, 2005 @ 9:47 pm
I was sitting in the Portland airport with the spousal unit one day waiting in a crowd of several hundred people for our flight. In the middle of the crowd there was a doctor making calls to patients and using their names. He made one call using the name of the patient and then went on to explain that her aids, STD tests were all negative. As I started to stand and give this buffoon the riot act the spousal unit gripped my hand very tightly, her signal to stay out of it. We were sitting quite a distance from this idiot but could make out everything he was saying over the airport noise, and I’m deaf in one ear and can’t hardly hear out of the other.
The other thing about cell phone users is that so many of them who can’t walk and chew gum are trying to drive and talk on the phone.
Comment by Azygos — June 5, 2005 @ 10:38 pm
I’m not so sure it’s welfare-related. In downtown Red Bank, which is decidedly upper-class these days, every other person is doing the same thing. It makes them feel important, I think. The new status symbol for those that still feel they need to make an impression on the rest of us who couldn’t care less.
Comment by Shamrock — June 5, 2005 @ 11:33 pm
Cell phones will be the ultimate downfall of our culture. Anyone who considers themselves so very important that they cannot be out of touch even for the space of time it takes to get from point a to point b needs a freakin dose of reality. The moment they drop dead …..they will be replaced as surely as the uncomunicative ones of us were.
Comment by Arrathorn — June 6, 2005 @ 12:37 pm
My only comment to the above comment by Arrathorn is that the description sounds a lot like the politicians in Trenton.
Comment by bsp — June 6, 2005 @ 1:37 pm
It’s contagious.
Comment by moos — June 6, 2005 @ 7:08 pm