The other day on the subway I was looking out the window as we went over the Manhattan Bridge. As soon as the train climbed out of the tunnel, the guy next to me whipped out his cell phone and began squinting at it. It's the same every morning, like a synchronized swimming event, as people deprived of their connection to the outside world for up to 45 whole minutes frantically try to reconnect during the two or three minutes they are above ground.
Usually they have time to shout, “I’m on the bridge! I’ll see you in ten minutes!” Then the train goes back down into the tunnel.
Thank God, I think, thank god. I imagine the person on the receiving end wiping sweat from their brow in relief. It’s 8:30 in the morning, after all--you know they were biting their nails, sitting on the edge of their seat, checking the clock every four seconds, desperately wondering where, where, WHERE IS TRINA? And then, thank God, the phone rings, and now they know. Trina is on the bridge. She’ll be there in ten minutes. They relax. They were paralyzed with fear, uncertainty, with NOT KNOWING. Now they can get on with their day.
I thought I'd be used to cell phones by now, but I'm not. I'll be 100 years old and still it will bug me that people need to call each other every four seconds to share absolutely nothing important. One of the reasons I enjoy being on trains and planes is precisely because people can't contact you there. It's nice to sit back and know that the entire world outside could be exploding, but for a few minutes at least, you are protected from the burden of having to know or care. I know this is not normal, but I've come to accept my freakishness.
This guy wasn't talking, just holding his phone up and squinting. I looked past him and out the window over the river. Once the excitement of crossing the bridge was over, I went back to sleeping. But before I could close my eyes, my Freak Magnetism kicked in.
“Are you laughing at me? Are you laughing at me because of what I’m doing with my phone?!”
I really hate it when the freaks arrive so early in the day. I’m just not prepared. Also, I wasn’t laughing. And--oh God, what WAS he doing with his phone? Was I sitting next to a porn junkie? The woman across from us just stared at me.
He said, “I was checking my Facebook! You were laughing at me, right? You think it’s stupid I’m on Facebook!”
Busted. Actually, I was thinking he was stupid for trying to phone someone during a two-minute bridge crossing, but now that I know he was obsessively checking Facebook at 8:15am as opposed to, say, texting the babysitter to remember the cough syrup or phoning in a prescription, I did want to laugh at him.
I lied, “No, I was just looking out the window. I was half-asleep.”
Him: “Oh. I thought you were making fun of me because I was checking my Facebook!"
Me: "No..."
Facebook Fiend: "OK. Just go back to wonderland then.”
Me: “Yes. That is where I like to be.”
1 comments:
Honestly, the facebook thing really gets to me. I don't care about people talking on cellphones everywhere (except when they're driving) and I don't care about people texting anywhere they are (except when their driving), but feeling the need to update your profile on a social networking site from you phone is absoultely fucking pathetic. And I'm on facebook. You know when I look at facebook? The five to ten minutes between doing the RCST revises and the RWJC QC, and it's getting to be rare that I write something. And you know why? This relates to your newest post. The answer is I'm turning 30 this year and rarely feel the need to update 100 people I went to high school with and really don't know about what Muppet character I'd be or who on Lost I'm most like. So yes, I agree, the guy on the train, pathetic.
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