Jack Knox
Slightly Skewed
In hindsight, I shouldn?t have sat near the pay phones.
Of course, by ?near? I mean the length of a football field, which is how far the guy?s voice carried as he shouted into the mouthpiece.
We were aboard the B.C. Ferry from Vancouver last week, me heading home to Victoria, he - according to his voluble conversation with an unseen friend - going to Vancouver Island to get wasted.
It seems the ?20something? fellow was disgruntled. The girl of his dreams, or at least of the previous night, had failed to provide him with the full range of services to which he felt entitled. He described, in graphic detail, what she did and did not do, his assessment delivered in the plaintive tones of a man whose new car had been delivered without the promised undercoating - though, frankly, after listening to him rhyme off a package of extras that included the sexual equivalent of on-board GPS, seat-warmers and a built-in DVD player, it was hard not to feel he was nitpicking.
All this he conveyed without any regard to the hundreds of passengers squirming within earshot. It wasn?t until the end of the call that Randy, as I dubbed him, showed a desire for discretion. ?Keep it on the down low!? he hollered into the phone, loudly enough to rattle the windows. Outside, seagulls covered their ears with their wings. Earthquake scientists scrambled for their seismographs.
OK, this episode was not really that shocking. By now we are all used to being subjected to human foghorns sharing private conversations at the top of their lungs. Once, on a crowded tube train in London, I sat opposite a fierce-looking punk - magenta mohawk, Doc Martens, studded leather, more metal in his face than in the average tackle box. Beside us, facing each other, were a couple of young American women who had to bellow like drill sergeants to be heard over the roar of the subway as they traded the intimate moments of their sex lives.
I suppose I should have been grateful, since this sort of talk usually requires one to surrender credit card information to a telephone chat line, but gosh, they went into such depth that it was hard to follow without a copy of Gray?s Anatomy and a laser pointer.
?I?ve never been so bleedin? embarrassed in my life,? said the mortified punk after the women left, the colour of his face matching that of his hair.
True story.
That was in the 1980s, before mobile phones, before Sex and the City, before we gained the ability to talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime and lost any inhibitions about sharing, within the hearing of strangers, the kind of information once considered fodder for blackmailers.
Frankly, it?s not even the subject matter that?s offensive. It?s the idea that you, the innocent bystander forced to listen to the exchange (or, at least, half of the exchange) are deemed so insignificant as to be invisible.
No, it?s nothing new, but it?s still galling to be in a restaurant, movie theatre or funeral parlour and have the person next to you rabbiting away on the BlackBerry as though isolated under the Get Smart cone of silence.
There?s a Rogers commercial on television right now where a girl asks to use a guy?s phone, he refuses, then the phone rings and it?s for her anyway.
?Oh, nobody,? she replies when the caller asks whose device she?s using. ?No seriously, he?s not important at all.? It?s supposed to be funny, the phone owner listening uncomfortably while she acts as though he?s not even there.
Well, why should he be the one to be uncomfortable? Why not the boor who makes a private call public?
Tell you what, if someone chooses to engage you in his conversation, then you should damn well feel free to be engaged. Sidle up and make eye contact.
Laugh at the jokes. Nod your head sagely when agreeing with a point, but don?t be afraid to express dissent (?But Randy, did you ever stop to think of her needs??)
Lean in close to the phone to catch both sides of the conversation.
Obviously the caller wants you involved. Otherwise, you wouldn?t be able to hear the conversation.
