Rants at cellers
Monday I wrote about the one of the most amazing rants I ever witnessed.
The following was shared by a friend. And Gladys, notice how it starts with a celler carrying on in her own little world.
It was about 10:30 p.m. on the Red Line heading north out of Belmont.
A young white college woman is talking loudly on her phone. She has a blue mohawk and lots of facial piercings.
Not far away sits a middle-aged black woman, looking increasingly agitated. She has reddish brown hair with weave extension. She appears to be very drunk.
"Shit! Turn that f***ing cell phone off! Shit! I don't want to hear that garbage! Shit! You should read a book or do a crossword puzzle. No convesation is important enough to have on the train."
Blue-hair finally figures out red-hair is talking about her. "Well excuse me. I'm a college student. I live 500 miles from home and I'm trying to talk to my dad about getting an apartment."
"Shit! Who cares! Just turn it off!"
They continue bickering, while others on the train are snickering.
Then a teen girl pipes up softly. (She's wearing a white sweater with a checkered necktie, with a bright red pixie haircut.) "Excuse me miss, but I really have sensitive ears. Could you please not scream so loudly?"
"Listen up you little f***ing white girl: You can get off too! Get the f*** off!"
Getting increasingly bolder, Ms. Pixie stammers: "But miss, you know you're swearing way louder than that lady is talking on her cell phone. So can you please stop swearing?"
The red-haired drunken woman swivels around sharply in her seat and promptly falls on her ass in a heap in the aisle.
And continues swearing.
Ms. Pixie exits soon after.
This is interesting to me mainly because it confirms something I've noticed quite a lot on trains: it's always the "outsider" who dares to speak up. In this case, it was a draw--pierced-cell-phone-girl vs. drunk-weave-lady...which now that I think about it, sounds like something that would be televised on Fox.
Recently my guy and I got a car--my first in five years--and so now my wrath is also directed at cellers on the road. Just today I followed for several blocks a woman who'd pulled directly in front of me because she was talking on the phone and not paying attention...just before my turnoff, I pulled even with her and yelled "GET OFF THE PHONE AND LEARN TO DRIVE!"
I'm thinking of dyeing my hair purple and piercing my eyebrow in celebration of my outspokenness. Or would that be going too far, I wonder?
Posted by: gladys | August 25, 2004 at 07:03 PM
I understand why people wouldn't want people talking on cell phones in movie theatres and fancy restaurants -- or even on the library-quiet Metra trains. But the CTA trains are *loud*. Not only that, but people are always talking and making noise. To me, the cell phone conversations just blend in with the rest of the noise.
One thing that's kinda funny though ... Sometimes when I board the brown line during rush hour, it seems like the first thing everyone does when they sit down is to call someone on their cell phone. Some days, it has seemed like everyone on the train was using their phone.
In fact, nowdays I'm surprised when I hear people complain about it.
Posted by: bob | September 10, 2004 at 11:20 PM