Teddy K likes what I did with cell phones

Short one this week, as I'm working my butt off trying to meet my deadline at the end of next week.

One day last week I was riding down on the elevator at work. Initially there was one other lady, probably in her 40s or 50s (trust me, that's relevant), but shortly a second lady, probably in her late 20s or early 30s got on, got on. This second lady was talking on her cell phone when she entered and continued the conversation for the rest of the ride down. A couple of thoughts went through my mind about this:

• Her talking on a cell phone doesn't particularly bother me; however it's probably considered poor etiquette to hold a cell-phone conversation on an elevator.
• This is something I could see my mom, my aunt Alison, and my grandma Wood talking about over dinner, about how annoying it is, and how people these days just don't have manners.

Now, I don't necessarily disagree with that second point. While it doesn't necessarily annoy me to be in an elevator with another person who's talking on their cell phone, it still gives me a poor impression as to their judgment relative to social etiquette. But hey, 99% of people in this world don't give a crap about others anyway, so it's not like that's a surprise to me. Anyway, what made this situation noteworthy was what happened afterwards. Once we were out of hearing range from the cell-phone lady (not like she would have been paying attention to us anyway) the other, older lady came up to me and said, "Doesn't it just annoy you when people do stuff like that? I think that was quite rude." My first thought: "I should introduce you to my mom's side of the family." My second thought: "Actually, you kind of look like my aunt Laurie (also on my mom's side of the family)." So, of course, this got me asking myself: "Which of these reflected worse on the respective persons: Talking on a cell phone in an elevator, or coming up to a complete stranger to put down another complete stranger." It's an interesting question, and I'm thinking my answer to it is the latter. A person talking on a cell phone in an elevator is essentially communicating that they're either naïve or they simply don't care. Neither are particularly appealing traits, but neither are deal-breakers either. The other one, though, is another story. Her comment may seem innocent enough on the surface, but let's take a moment to read into it. First, the surface-level content – she thought it was rude to hold a cell-phone conversation on an elevator. That's fine – the woman has a sense of what is socially acceptable. Now let's take a look at how that was communicated. The most obvious aspect is that she revealed herself as being willing to put another person down. That's not particularly desirable. Of course, putting others down, while not necessarily healthy, is quite common among humans (ironically writes the writer), so what makes this occurrence stand out? Well, I think it's the "complete stranger" factor. My first impression of this woman was of her telling me how somebody else was bad. Poor form.

Now, we'll jump ahead a few days. I was at the gym yesterday doing a 30-minute power workout on an elliptical machine when a woman got onto the machine next to me and proceeded to talk to her "lover" (as she so frequently called him) while doing her workout. First of all, how do you do a real workout and hold a conversation at the same time? People I talk with can always tell when I'm so much as taking a walk while talking on the phone (as I often get the "you sound a little out of breath" comment). Granted, I prefer to walk fast, but still, that's nowhere near the exertion of an elliptical workout. It's the same as people that read while they work out. How do they do that? Maybe they're only doing 50%-60% maximum heart rate workouts. My personal philosophy is that if you don't get your heart rate up to at least 70% of your max the workout isn't worth doing. Anyway, so there's this woman talking on her cell phone next to me in the gym, and it was bugging the hell out of me. And then I started thinking – why is this any different than the elevator situation? I can't really come up with a good answer for that one. Maybe it was just my moods at the time. Whatever.

Anyway, that's enough rambling about cell phones. Cell phones are one of the greatest modern conveniences we have, and if I have to put up with having people hold conversations in places they shouldn't be, I can deal with it.

Oh, and DJ Icey at Spundae ruled.