I hate people who talk on their mobile phone LOUDLY in public places.

This week I had to deal with a phone while I was eating dinner, taking the train and standing on line to check out of a store. Now, I could understand if the conversations were important. Emergencies. You know, the type of phone call that couldn’t wait 10 minutes. But nope, these were the conversations I had to endure:

Restaurant:

Woman in her 20s: No really, I swear I’m telling the truth. OK, so here’s what happened, Taylor and I went to see Ryan and then all hell broke lose. Ryan was there with Katie and Ryan and Katie ‘broke up’ two weeks ago, so Taylor hooked up with Ryan. But then Taylor was supposed to go with him to Jason’s New Year’s Eve party, but he didn’t call, so we just decided to go to Jason’s anyway, and that when we see Ryan and Katie acting as if they had never broken up. I thought Taylor was going to go nuts on him. But then Taylor ….

Train:

Guy in his 30s: It was outrageous. No. No. No. Yes. I can’t tell you here, but it was incredibly outrageous. I thought I would pee my pants. Yea, Yea. Yea. Um-Huh. Seriously. She was, you know, right there.   (I was hoping that this guy wasn’t Ryan, and he wasn’t talking about Taylor, but I had no way of knowing.)

Store:

Woman in her 40s: I was going to f@#king kill him. It was the worst Christmas in my life. I should have just told him what the f@#k to buy me. Can you imagine. Can you f@#king imagine buying someone that for Christmas. I can imagine him going into the store and the f@#king woman behind the counter is thinking ‘this guy is a f@#king idiot.’ I don’t know what the f@#k he was thinking. Do  you have any idea what the f@#k he was thinking? ‘Cause I know I don’t.  Now, I’m have to be the f@#king idiot and return it to the f@#king store. And the people in the store are going to know that I’m the person married to the f@#king idiot who bought it.  (Of course, I was thinking — everyone in this store knows you’re the idiot married to another idiot.)

And here’s what made matters worse. The woman in the store, had a 7 or 8 year old with her while she was on the phone. A cute little kid who was hearing it all. She kept tugging at her mother’s sleeve trying to get her attention, but the woman was too into her conversation to notice.

All three time I wished I was Larry David. I wanted to bust in to all three conversations and tell them that they were bothering everyone.  But I decided I was — in a way — enjoying listening to their stupidity. So while I was bothered by it – I was also somewhat entertained at the same time.

I guess it was kind of like watching ‘The Jersey Shore’ – you hate everything about it, but somehow it makes you laugh that there are actually people that stupid. It makes  you feel all superior.

But at the end of the day, I decided that yes, I hate these people. Because they don’t care about anyone. Not their child, not the people sitting around them, not Taylor, Ryan or Katie. They just care that they’re heard.

So in case you’re wondering, yes, we can hear you now. Everyone can hear you. And we hate you for it.

1/2/12