Lost and Found

Okay, so I’ve decided to not even look at the new iPad. I mean I haven’t really heard or seen how people’s lives have been changed by it, so I’ve decided not to get it. At least not until the price drops and I can get it without having to switch to AT&T in order to get service on the road. Plus with all the stuff that I carry now I’m starting to look like one of those homeless bag ladies that trudge along with all their worldly goods in tow and last thing I need is more stuff to lose.

Yesterday I was on the bus in Northeast Philly, the first time that I’ve ever been there, when a young woman picked up a cell phone from the seat in front of me and walked over to the driver. She had him open up the door as she called over to one of the men who had just left the bus. Apparently the phone didn’t belong to him and she turned and went back to her seat where she started to flip through the information stored on the phone. Why do women do that?

Now if that was me and I had the slightest bit of interest in even getting up, I would have given the phone to the driver where he would have turned it in to Lost and Found or pocketed the thing for himself. There would be no fuss and I would no longer be involved. But she on the other hand was trying to figure out how she was going to lay that trap and I say that because it happened to me once.

About 2 cell phones ago I left cell phone on the train and I didn’t realize it until the next day when I was at work. After trying to figure out where I could have left it and calling around to the different places that I could have left it I finally decided to call my phone and see what would happen. A woman answered and said that she had picked up the cell the previous night and that we could meet at lunchtime the next day where she could give it back to me. I wondered to myself why we couldn’t just meet after work and get it done with, but I let it go. Instead I just called up Verizon and had the shit cut off, no point having unexpected calls to Guam being listed on my next phone bill.

The next day I went to the train station at 8th and Market and approached her. I could tell that it wasn’t me that she was expecting. I guess I didn’t look like the picture I was using for a screen saver that month. No dreads here. But she squared her shoulders back, gave me the phone and started to give me the mini-bio of herself. She told me that she and a girlfriend had received comp tickets to spend a night in Atlantic City but the girlfriend had dropped out; would I be interested? The girl was on the hunt for a man.

Now it’s true that I have preferences and those have never stopped me before, but this time I had to take a stand. After all it may seem at times that I’m somebody’s piece, but only because I’ve allowed it. I’ve set too many targets and traps myself not to know when it’s being done to me. So I said that I would get back to her and excused myself as I praised God silently that the she didn’t accept the $20, or was it $10 that I had offered her?

Yesterday on the bus I made sure my wallet was in my pocket and I checked my bag to see if both of my cameras and my 2 week old HTC Droid cell phone with the 2 naked white men for a screen saver was there and I felt secure. I may already have too much stuff to lose.

Manners and the Cell Phone

Years and years ago, when Trailways was still in business or at least ran out of Philadelphia, I had gotten back from London and after noticing that everyone there seemed to have one, I decided to get a cell phone for myself.

I remember the Trailways thing because one of my first calls was done on the bus trip back from Boston to Philadelphia. The trip was one of those promotional deals done in order to save the company, $25 round trip for the Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t really want to go to Boston, but it was a hell of lot cheaper than the $500 plus that the airlines wanted to take me to Miami with a one-day advance purchase. Yes as usual I had left everything to the last minute and decided that I had had enough of the DC Memorial Day trips. No one told me at the time the trip to Bean Town would take 6 hours each way and have 2 sever cases of leg cramps.

Anyway, it was the Monday and I remember calling Larry and telling him that I would be arriving in Philly at around whatever time it was and that we should hang out and go to a club when I got there. When I hung up, a little girl who had been watching me came over and said that her mother, sitting behind me to my left would like to know if she could use my phone. I looked at the mother and thought the nerve of some people, doesn’t know me from a sack of shit but wants me to pay for her roaming charges, long distance charges and maybe even international charges if she calls Haiti or wherever she was from, (I’m bigoted that way sometimes, I don’t mean to be, but that’s how it is.) I shook my head and said “no” openly and “bitch” silently.

I bring this up only because I read earlier this week on MSNBC.com an article about the etiquette of cell phone use and how it has degraded the social interaction between many and left the rest of us angered or at least frustrated by the seeming lack of concern by the cell phone user for the privacy and comfort of those not engaged in their conversations.

Curtis is like that. If we are leaving the gym together and in the elevator, he will get on his phone and almost shout into it. Regardless of how many people are in there with us, he will talk, kee-kee and guffaw so loudly that I swear one time I felt the glass walls of the thing start to vibrate.

There was another time when a man on the Speedline, my commuter train, started to call his friend and tell him about his “I”-talian meal that he just had and had washed it down with a nice Chianti. He must have also caught an old movie too. He spoke of how he enjoyed himself until his friend on the other end must have told him that he was going to bed, it was about 9pm and they hung up. Then he called another friend and got to same point in the story when this one said that his wife was calling him and they hung up. And this continued and continued until he got to his station.

I would have felt sorry for this man’s friends having to put up with him, but they got to end their conversations. I and the rest of the passengers in the car heard the same story over and over again for at least 6 times word for word, and each time as clear as a bell even though we were about 20 feet apart. Everyone was starting to get annoyed. I guess like me they just wanted to get 20 minutes or so of peace and quiet after a long day and this bozo was intruding in it.

Speaking of peace and quiet, have you ever travelled on Amtrak along the Northeastern Corridor? Some trains now have a quiet car at the end where conversations and cell phones are forbidden and all electronics must be in the mute mode in order to enhance the ride and joy of their fellow passengers. I love it and try to find it whenever I am on Amtrak.

As for the movies, I won’t even get into the amount of times that I used to hear cells phones ring and conversations start when I was at there. Although now, I have learned to avoid certain places and stay away from those elements that exasperate me. That’s code for me being “Bougie” even though I’m not sure bougie is what really describes me.

A few years ago I was on my cell phone and telling, well he never reads this, Lamont my plans for the weekend.
“I think that I will come up to Neeeew …..York,” a loud release of breath and a pause, “this weekend.”
“Are you alright?” asks Lamont.
“Yeah. I was just stretching,” I said trying to remember not to flush the toilet until after I hung up with him.

Truth be told, I think that wasn’t the only time that I’ve gone through that, nor was Lamont the only person that I’ve done it to. But if someone were to do that to me and show so much disrespect I would try to reach through that phone and I would, I would…

Well, who among us is perfect?