October 1, 2008

put down the phone!

As much as driving while talking on the cell phone makes headlines nowadays, I have to take issue with a much darker, sinister and, well, gross use of cellular technology.
And that is {insert dramatic music here}:
Talking on the cell phone in a public restroom stall while taking a shit.

Yesterday, I'm in there with a more liquid elimination need than the guy in the stall gabbing away behind me.
I could tell he was on a phone due to the syncopated speech patterns. Either that or he just talked really funny to himself.
I wondered to myself just how busy a person needs to be to think it is a good idea to do such a thing. To say nothing of the potential disaster of {shudder} dropping your phone between your legs into a place where hands should never go until after the flush.
And then I started thinking of the embarrassment of the person on the other end who would have had to have heard the sounds of urinals flushing, tap water running and paper towel dispenser twirling in the background. And that empty yet echo-y sound that a full scale dirty tile room makes. What could they have been thinking?
I would have been offended, I think, to know that I meant so little to this person that they had to call me during a "break" in their day.
And I certainly would never ask to borrow their phone.