Poor Man About Town

I was on a bus journey through London's West End a few days ago. This woman sat opposite me on the back seats, she was babbling into a mobile. Middle class accent, well heeled; she should have been driving around in a Porsche rather than having to cope with the indignity of travelling on a smelly London bus*. I guess she must have been disqualified from driving hence her reduced circumstances in transportation. The babble was the usual public exposure of private life, names of friends, what they did last friday; with whom she intends to have to suppernext Saturday; Jocelyn getting quite legless on Sunday night and attempting to paw at her...Then came the discussion about when she should meet up with the person with whom she was speaking "No, can't do next Saturday, attending a wedding...can't do that either...no, no...no...fully booked in June; as for July, I am going on my hols. August, now let's see..." This was getting excruciatingly tedious and I felt like saying to her "Why the fuck don't you tell that person that you can't meet up until 2035 but that you can still keep in contact on the mobile". This woman's life was so fully booked that it caused me to wonder whether she had any life at all. This phone call was intrusive, it ruined my concentration for the book that I was reading. Maybe I was too polite by not saying anything. Maybe the etiquette is such that we have allowed people to babble on ad-nauseum into mobile phones - the die has been cast in that regard. Can anyone suggest from where I can get a mobile phone zapper?

Labels: Lifestyle, Manners, mobile phones