Cell phone etiquette

It's 7:30 in the morning. Why are people yapping away on their cells? These are not movers and shakers of industry. And what the hell could they be talking about for a solid 30 minutes? Nothing, of course. Nothing.

Whenever I take the blue bus number 12, I always wind up seated near someone who is yapping loudly on their cell phone or whips it out just to bother me. Yep. It’s the cell phone versus Palmer! It happens 80 percent of the time.

This morning, for example, two SMC chicks with the same greasy hair-do are seated in the front of the bus yapping away on their separate cells. For me, if I was listening to one of them on the receiver, I would probably be totally confused by the background noise of the bus and the other cell phone conversation. Anyways, I had spotted those yappers quickly enough to find a seat towards the back. However, as I am settling in, the passenger across the aisle has conspicuously switched ears and is now talking quietly on her cell. Shit! I missed that! And you know it’s bad when their switch ears! That means a long-ass cell phone conversation and my quiet bus ride is a shambles like the pot-holed roads of L.A.

By now the bus is moving and the area I am in, doesn’t smell too bad, so I resign and settle, boot up my ear buds and listen to KCRW’s NPR news. However, during those quiet lulls on the number 12, when the bus is waiting for the signal to change and KCRW’s Michelle Norris’ manicured voice pauses for a deep breath, that cell phone conversation to my right sounds like a roar. Luckily, by now we’re at Pico and Westwood Boulevard where most SMCers depart to catch the blue bus number 7. I eye a nice seat in front and just as I make my move, someone quickly gets up and grabs it. Shit! Being Palmer on the Bus, however, I always have a blue bus back up seat plan, and casually move to another open slot and settle down again. Fortunately, it smells much better up front and that lady is not audible from here.

It’s either the yapping of the cell phone people or the stink of the hobo which drive me crazy on the bus. Luckily, those homeless stinkers are still sleeping at 7:15am so the number 12 has a limited supply of them unlike the like the Culver City line number 6 which has every sort of gross machination of human trouble and cadence. And, you have to stand for the whole ride!

Life on the big blue bus sucks. All you out there, yea relish your drive to work in a bundled mass of metal and gas. Yer he safe from the sounds and smells of the CNG buses. I revel in your wholesomeness. Your clean pants not soiled with stain and smell of some hobo who was scratching his nut sack for 30 minutes. Your stereo, oh, so loud and proud as it belts out the melodic voices of KCRW, like a fine pedigree dog, best in show. A coat, thick with fat and shiny like oil. Yes, I envy you now but just know your car ride, though superior, won’t be great forever. Soon, all of us, en mass will ride on the bus together, holding hands singing Kum Bah Ya. For now, I am going to buy a decent, lite pair of over-the-ear headphones to block out the noise!