When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

So I went.

Without giving away the poopie details, lets just say I was doing my business when the guy in the next stall starts talking.

Loudly.

He's in there alone so I know he's talking to himself and probably crazy. He's talking about his car, in a calm voice - evidently not any emergency with the car, just a regular conversational tone.

Must be nuts.

Ok, time to go. I finish my business and start scrubbing my hands when his stall door swings open and I notice that his cell phone is glued to his ear. He's saying 'Goodbye'.

I almost fell on the floor LOL to think this dude was actually sitting there on the Throne talking about something really stupid. I wondered if the person he was talking to knew exactly what he was doing and where he was during their conversation.

I've seen people talking on cell phones in many kinds of places... the supermarket, the restaurant, you name it. I've seen people driving with one hand and talking on their cell phones and weaving between lanes going 70 mph and it always pisses me off.

But this was something else!

And I thought I'd seen everything.

-- (sonofdust@seen.everthing), December 11, 2003

Answers

Now there's a picture Rob! If only you'd known earlier, you could have made the appropriate sound effects in order to give his friend a clue as to where he was.

The two worst places I've heard of a mobile 'phone ringing were during a wedding ceremony and most tasteless of all, at a funeral. I guess some people just don't know there is an "off" button.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), December 11, 2003.

Rob, you should get a kick out of this:

Leaving Minnesota for Colorado, I decide to make a stop at one of those rest areas on the side of the road. I go in the washroom. The first stall was taken so I went in the second stall. I just sat down when I hear a voice from the next stall...

- "Hi there, how is it going?"

Okay, I am not the type to strike conversations with strangers in washrooms on the side of the road. I didn't know what to say so finally I say:

- "Not bad..."

Then the voice says:

- "So, what are you doing?"

I am starting to find that a bit weird, but I say:

- "Well, I'm going back to Colorado..."

Then I hear the person say all flustered:

- "Look I'll call you back, every time I ask you a question this idiot in the next stall keeps answering me."

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), December 11, 2003.

Good one, Gayla. Professional grade. Jay Leno would be envious. Truth is stranger (and funnier) than fiction.

Rob, I was almost hit by a young woman backing slowly out of a parking place at a Walgreens last night. My honking finally got thru. She stopped just short. Had a phone glued to her ear and was distractedly looking the other way. I had alread swerved to where I was blocked in up front and wouldn't have had time to throw it in reverse.

This thread reminds me that I was in a conference a couple of years ago and the motivational speaker didn't use a microphone. He explained how he had relied on his own speaking volume since he'd forgotten to turn his mike off at a break somewhere and had then had trouble on the toilet. I have paraphrased more delicately, and he gave us rather more than anyone wanted to hear. I wasn't motivated (take it as you will) and would be surprised if the guy gets a good recommendation from any conference where he tells that anecdote. Communications from the toilet should only consist of "I'm in here." 'Nuff said. You can talk later--after washing.

-- notmissmanners@but.getaclue (jsnider@hal-pc.org), December 12, 2003.