Return to Sender: Can You Hear Me Now?

But this notion that a small, enclosed space does a private call make is still with us. Which, we guess, is why people are so happy to make very loud, personal cell phone calls on busses and trains. We see a couple of problems with this association:

Phone booths are stationary; trains and busses move. While a phone booth on a street corner can be pretty loud, it’s nothing compared to the volume generated on a bus or a train. We all know how hard it is to hear ourselves think while on the bus or train. If you’re on the phone, it often results in a lot of “What? WHAT? I can’t hear you, I’m on the bus!” Which, of course, you have to scream into your phone, so that the other party can hear you. When you’re on the street and unmoving, this ceases to be an issue. You won't have to scream into the ear of the person next to you.

Phone booths are a convenience; trains and busses are a necessity. Phone booths existed because it was nice for people to be able to make phone calls when not home. Busses and trains exist because people need to get places – work, home, and otherwise. What it amounts to is that public transit is a right, and public telephoning is a privilege. We remember back in the day when cell phones cost a couple grand and were the size and weight of cinder blocks. (And who doesn't remember the Zack Morris phone?) They didn’t used to be ubiquitous. You are not as entitled as you think. So don’t look so offended when we glare at you while you’re on the phone.

Phone booths can comfortably accommodate one; trains and busses accommodate dozens. This means that your private conversation is anything but. While we confess to frequent phone calls made and received on public transit, we try to hold our more personal conversations for quieter, less crowded settings. We have no interest in your sex life or lack thereof (and subsequent solo techniques). We don’t care about how much money you owe to your loan officer, the electric company, or your bookie. You don’t have to describe to the person on the other end exactly what’s happening on the bus (“Yeah, we’re at 15th now, heading to Broad. Looks like there’s some kind of line outside Borders. Oh, there’s a sign that says there’s a book signing. Some really hot girls in line. Oh, wait, the light changed. Bye, ladies.”) We don’t need to hear about your trouble with alcohol, your brother’s trouble with smack, or how you were beaten as a small child, and how your personal relationship with Jesus has helped you cope with all of these things. (We have heard all of these things on SEPTA.) You see, we were always taught that there are certain things you don’t bring up in groups of strangers: money, sex, and religion. (Politics are often thrown in that list, but it’s hard to avoid a political discussion these days.) It’s part southern upbringing and part common courtesy. It’s how we were raised. Certain discussions don’t belong in so public a forum. (And to the guy across the aisle from us on the R-7 a few weeks ago: we like the shore too, but you didn’t need to spend forty-five minutes soliloquizing about how nice the “wooder” was in Ocean City the week before. We know that’s not necessarily a “private” conversation – but it was still extremely rude.)

When we get calls while riding on SEPTA, we try to make them as expedient and impersonal as possible. For instance:

Us: “Hello?”
Them: “Hey. What’s up?”
Us: “Not much. Listen, we’re on the bus right now. Can we call you when we get home?”
Them: “Sure. Talk to you then.”

See? Short and sweet and nobody on the bus felt like slitting our throats. Unless, of course, it was for our ring tone.

Not that anybody would dislike our ring tone. Our ring is a polyphonic version of a popular song from the early 90s. But we’ve definitely been in positions in which we wished great harm on a person because of his or her cell phone ring. On that same R-7 with the “wooder” guy, there was a woman sitting behind us whose cell phone kept ringing. She didn’t seem to want to answer it, but she didn’t seem to want to turn the phone to vibrate, either. This is bad enough when it’s a MIDI version of Beethoven’s Ninth. But when your cell phone ring is a recording of a recent rap hit that begins with a barrage of gunfire, you’re not only being rude, you’re disturbing the peace. That baby crying at the front of the car? The one you kept mumbling about in order to show your annoyance? Did you notice that every time your phone rang, the baby began to cry? Stop bitching and turn off your damn phone, or prepare to face retaliation.

We’ve come to see cell phones as a necessary evil. While we feel almost naked going anywhere without ours, we always make sure we turn them off at movies, concerts, and plays, avoid answering them in restaurants, and keep our public conversations quiet and brief. Especially when we’re riding around on SEPTA. We don’t want to be rude – and neither should you.