Just a few random observations on my way to work this morning.
I can’t believe how many people make phone calls (on the bus) before 7 AM. Everyone I know would kill me if I called them that early. These aren’t business people calling the East Coast either. I hear people calling friends “Grrrl, you won’t believe what happened last night,” their relatives, “Look, you know how Dad is, you are just going to have to make the sugar-free Jell-o and the strawberry with marshmellows.”
What is the deal with wearing headphones in public?
First of all there were three people on the bus whose mp3 players were cranked so loud that we could all hear their music. They sat in a triangular pattern, creating a bizarre triangulation/music-meld of punk, metal, and country. This created a strange field of energy that two people actually disappeared in while trying to get to the door of the bus. Where did those people end up? In the future, the past, another world, another bus zone?
Next there was a guy in the elevator with his headphones still on. I understand wearing them on the bus, but while walking down the street – how do you hear the honking car horn, ringing bicycle bell, and shouting of joggers that are about to run you down? (Then again, if you want to behave like you are the only person in the world – maybe you ought to be run-down 
) Wearing headphones in the coffee line – how do you hear the barrista ask you if you want whip or not? Wearing headphones in the elevator – how do you hear the nice, attractive young woman ask you to press the 4 button? The answer is – you don’t. The young, attractive lady is left to throwing balled up pieces of paper and used kleenex at you from across the crowded elevator, so you’ll press the damned 4 button!
I wonder what would happen if people went back to the olden days where we didn’t have enough technology to be constantly entertained, and we had to grow/raise our own food, and we had to do lots of hard physical labor from dusk to dawn. Where we relied on each other for basic existence? Well, we actually do still rely on each other, and you can try to block that out with your cell phone, headphones, or your car door and windows. You can pretend noone is around and drive like a maniac, ignore the woman throwing spit balls at you in the elevator, and make the barrista shout at you about whipped cream – but the fact is, you aren’t alone out there – and that is a good thing. Try to embrace it. Maybe you’ll be surprised at how entertaining your fellow human beings are.
