Nobody Cares

I understand that time spent in an airport is truly dead time and one of my least favorite things to do. iPod, a drink at the bar, newspaper, magazine, a quick lap dance at the airport strip club; all very productive ways to pass time. Another, probably the most popular, way to pass time is talking on the phone. Catch up with some friends, tell your loved ones you made it through the stringent TSA security regulations with minimal cavity searches...... HOWEVER, you, Mr. Bluetooth, are not fooling anybody in the entire terminal into thinking you are closing Multi-trillion dollar deals while you wait for your Southwest flight.

I understand business is being done, but nobody at the gate cares about your conversation, and many of us are trying to have our own, so how bout you A) keep your voice down or B) walk to an empty gate to conduct your merger of two Fortune 500 companies.

I'm not sure why people have some inclination to advertise their telephone conversations in crowded areas. Do you think anybody cares? Are you just oblivious to the VOLUME OF YOUR VOICE (cue Will Ferrell's monotone man skit)? Maybe it just goes on a case by case basis, but I speak discretely as possible when in an airport because nothing creeps me out more than knowing people are eaves-dropping in on my conversations.

Is it people's innate desire to make their importance known, is it an underlying level of selfishness that they might not consider others around them trying to read or hear their own thoughts? In either situation I do always find it interesting when I inadvertently hear soembody saying something along the lines of, "YEA, THAT SOUNDS GREAT! YEA LET'S DO THAT... UH-HUH... SEND ME A COPY OF THAT TO MY E-MAIL... YEA.... GREAT!"

Way to go big hustler, closin deals and makin it rain... you're so very important, I'm glad I was able to share that portion of your life with you.

A Follow Up Tip

Just to offer a little field research to back up my earlier bartender tipping rant...

While wrapping up a great couple of days this past weekend in Baltimore I was getting ready to go back up to the county on Saturday night when I realized, 5 minutes after departing Looney's, that I had forgotten to close out my tab.  I went back to find a locked door, watching the bartenders clean up the bar just after having closed.  

I knocked on the door and told the female bartender from whom I was ordering all night, "I forgot to close my tab" 

to which she replied, "sorry, come back tomorrow"

"I have a flight in the morning"

and the tourette-ick woman repeated, louder, without looking up "COME BACK TOMORROW!"

"C'mon!"

"Manana!" ahhh, she's bi-lingual

I looked for help from a bouncer who came to the front to see what was going on and yelled through the glass that I had a flight and that she refused to give me my credit card.  The bouncer, surprisingly, talked some sense into the (insert whatever you would have called her here) .

So, after facing defeat, she came out to hand me my card, adding the obligatory 20% tip to unclosed tabs and I was on my way......

Just another bartender that proved my point.