I just have one simple question. Who was the dumb fuck who decided it was a good idea to bring a once popular childhood toy into the 21st century and unleash it upon an already obnoxious society????
I'm, of course, talking about the annoying little contraptions called the two-way radio.
You know, when I get on the bus at 8:oo in the morning to ride almost an hour to work or in the evening for the return trip, all I want to do is either try to wake up or try to wind down. Is it too much to say to other passengers that, when you see someone quietly sitting and reading a book, it is rude to pop open your walkie-talkie and start speaking to someone halfway across the city through a device that only makes the other party sound like an alien enjoying a anal probe?
But first, let us begin with another gadget...
Cell phones were bad enough but, thanks to my dear friends, M&O, I have been sucked into that world and have now plummeted down into a well of custom ring-tones, text messaging and speed dialing. Within a few short months of ownership, I have found myself relying on this little devise as much as a high school nerd relies on his pocket protector and Texas Instruments calculator with all those unnecessary extra buttons. I find myself going from one of those "I'll call you when I get the chance" people to running the 8 blocks from the bus stop back to my house because I've only got one more bar left on the battery indicator and I forgot my charger.
I used to dread working evenings not because all my friends were already home from work and enjoying a cocktail or two, but because, as soon as I slide my money into the fair box along with 20 other people and slip into my seat for the long ride home, it would happen without fail. I would pull out my book, flip back the dog-eared page, get as comfortable as one could get on a bus seat and begin reading where I had left off eight hours earlier. The other passengers would board the bus, take their seats, stuff their bags and other items between their knees and the seats infront of them and, like sycronized swimmers, reach into their pockets or purses, pull out their cells and flip them open. Like the sound of a deck of cards being fanned into a shuffle, the plastic flip-tops open in unison and the beep-beep-beep of fingers punching in numbers drowns out the roar of the bus engine.
Then the 30 or so different conversations begin. I've never been on the trading floor of an exchange house, but I could imagine it not being that much worse than a busload of people all announcing to their callers that they were now on the bus. Is someone's life really that important that they feel the need to call and give an account of their whereabouts that hasn't really altered from day to day since they had first taken the job from which they were now leaving? And to make things worse, each person on the bus; each person speaking into their mouthpiece has to speak louder than the one sitting next to them. Don't they realize that the person on the other end of the line can, for the most part, hear them perfectly clear? Just because the talker can't hear the conversation over the drone of other chatters doesn't mean that speaking louder...actually shouting into the phone is going to make it a more pleasant experience. Just once I wish someone would realize this and say: "Hey, this is a waste of minutes. Let me call you when I get off the bus."
For a number of weeks I (and yes, the other passengers) had the displeasure of actually having to listen to not only someone shouting into a phone for the entire ride home, but someone shouting in Chinese. A middle-aged Chinese woman would arrive at the bus stop every evening just as the bus arrived. Her annoyance begins long before the cell phone is brought out. Every night, she would get onto the bus and shout for the driver to wait. "My friend...He come now! He come now!" She would point across the street to another Chinese man dodging cars and ignoring blaring horns. One time, when the guy was still a half block away and the bus driver closed the door and started pulling away from the stop, she actually grabbed the steering wheel. Those first few times of witnessing her enthusiasm were quite funny and the other passengers would begin laughing (all the while, making their ritualistic phone calls), but after awhile everyone had had enough of her and she soon realized that it was every man for himself and that her co-worker would just have to catch the next bus if he wasn't quick enough. But that was only part of the annoyance of this woman.
Once she would sit down, without fail, she would pull out her cell phone and start dialing. I sat across the aisle from her one evening and had to listen to her gab on and on and on for about twenty minutes, shouting in her native tongue to whomever was on the other end of the line. People shot her dirty looks while snickering with one another at the same time and making comments that they had no intentions of keeping quiet. The woman finally hung up the phone to the audible relief all around her. Then she would start dialing again. And again, a loud one-sided conversation would erupt for another ten minutes. After a third time, someone had finally had enough (I had to do everything I could to keep myself from ripping the phone out of her hand and stomping on it) and told her either to put the phone away or keep her conversation quiet. Few passengers even applauded when they saw the woman slip the phone into her pocket.
And now, we have the two-way radio...
As if it wasn't bad enough to have to try and block out a one-sided conversation, now we must ignore the other party too? But how can you ignore a little contraption that precedes an incoming voice with probably one of the most annoying sounds since Yoko Ono first signed a record deal? That squelch/beep/piercing cry for attention sends chills up my back. But what's worse is the fact that, not only must you have to hear what the other person is saying, but you must hear it in a way that technology can't seem to advance. There is abso-fucking-lutely no difference in the way a voice sounds on these things nowadays compared to how the voices of two kids sounded playing army while running around shouting into the $10 walkie-talkies of the 60's and 70's.
Has technology advanced so much that it's brought us back in time?
What's next, a box that you can plug into your tv and be able to play table-tennis with a square ball and a pair of paddles that are no more than elongated versions of the square ball?
Oh wait... If I'm not mistaken, Pong did make a come-back...
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