Tuesday, March 11, 2008

What if everyone had a Conference Call at once?

Today, I took a late train in from Bedford Hills. I call it the "amateur hour" train because it's a lot of students, retirees, ladies who lunch, etc. The moment I got on I spied a young woman who was asleep taking up two entire seats. Perfect! This is what's known as the "Snoozer Strategy." You either sleep or pretend like you're asleep and hope that nobody is willing to make the effort to wake you. As seatmates go, they're up there. In any event, I jumped at the opportunity to sit at the end of that 3-seater row because we're not likely to get a third person and because she's probably not going to make any noise at all, let alone talk on her cellphone. Unfortunately, she eventually woke up and proved me wrong. Not only did she talk on her phone, but her call kept getting dropped, so her phone kept ringing and she kept starting and re-starting the same inane conversation. Eventually, she started to imitate someone talking to her cat in a high-pitched voice. But wait, it gets worse. All around me phones started ringing. "Hello?" "Hello?" "Yo!" The little old lady in a fur coat across from me even had her ringer set to "Santa Claus is coming to town." Then it hit me — what if the entire car simultaneously talked on their phones? It was a nightmare scenario. I saw myself cracking open the side window and trying to squeeze out the tiny sliver of plexiglass that cants open just a tiny crack.... It was like "Throw Momma from the Train" except the masses would be holding me back from jumping, the ones wearing a Bluetooth headset anyway: "Nooo! Don't do it! We're at the Valhalla station already!!! Then it's a clear shot after White Plains and... and... Hello? I'm sorry but I gotta take this call..."

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