The Wait (Part 2)

I remember writing about The Wait for my friend in restaurant quite a while back.

Unless you have a photographic memory or have been following the blog from the start, chances are you might not know about it. So, you may click the link to read the first part.

Waiting is one the most awkward things for the human race. So, instead of looking like a loner while I wait, now I read articles in my cell phone. I am totally against this and would rather watch humans eating in their natural habitat but some people consider it creepy and I don’t want to be kicked out of the restaurant. (Never happened before, I swear)

Having a cell phone out in public can be a big threat it seems. Specially if there are kids around. I was sitting at a restaurant waiting for my friend. So, I flip out my cell phone and start using the free wi-fi the restaurant had provided. (Well, it wasn’t free but having the restaurant name in caps is not a safe password).

While, I was freeloading to the extreme (I had started updating all my pending apps *evil laugh*), a child walks up to me and stands next to me. I don’t pay much attention to the pint sized human and continue to read on my cell phone. He looked at me with a look that said – “Pay attention to me“; with a hint of – “I want that cell phone“; with an garnishing of – “I always get what I want“.
He pointed to the gadget which was helping me escape the anxiety of making eye contact with a stranger and said. “I want that!” So, I did what any normal person would and turned the other way to ignore him.

I normally don’t have problems with kids because I can get along with them. I just have to induce a wicked thought in their mind and I go scot-free. It is that simple.

But this kid was different. I swear I could see him laugh before he did what he did next. He fell down on the floor and started crying. And his fall was professional! Like he had learnt it directly from the football (soccer) players. (You know the ones who fake a fall to get a penalty)

His mother walked up to me, naturally assuming I had dome something horrid with the Satan re-incarnated.

“What happened?” she asked him and he pointed to me.

I expertly clear my throat to explain the matter to her.

What I thought I was going to say – “He fell down in a tantrum when I denied him my phone.”

What I actually said – “His fell tantrum on my phone… Football… Satan”

“My kid doesn’t cry just on a whim, what did you do?”

I knew I was trapped. I saw my friend enter the restaurant.

“Run, away. Run away before they get you too. I am all but lost.” I told her.
Well, I did not say it out loud but we have sign language that says that. It is me looking at her wide eyed and shaking my head. She turned and walk out like she was at the wrong place, while I stayed to get the mistaken mother’s wrath.

Cell Phones

A day went by in which I did not use my mobile phone, because its system had corrupted. It felt like life had stopped and something was incomplete. Made me realize how much we are dependent on mobile phones. Think about it, from the alarm clock in the morning to playing fruit ninja in boring waiting lines, mobile phones are everything people had never expected them to be.

Makes me think about a quote I read, “I miss those days when I could just go to a party and push somebody in the pool and not worry about the person having his mobile phone in his pocket.”

Old Enough

I was walking down a corridor, when I overheard a person talk to somebody on the phone and he was telling him/her, ‘you are not old enough.’

This led me to think, when exactly does a person get old enough? People say it is at the age of 16, some disagree and say 18 is the age when you are actually grown up and some say 21 is the age when you are actually mature enough to think. Even then there restrictions to what people can do at certain ages.

So when exactly ARE you old enough? And this is the best answer I could come up with.

You know you are old enough when you do not want to grow older anymore and rather curse yourself to want to grow older in the first place, because being a kid is the best!

I would really like to know more perspective on what people think is old enough for them.

The language of SMS

So, I see this post up on facebook by a guy who is clearly using, what we term as, SMS lingo.

It went something like this –

“Usin mah Nokia express music yet agin, d new 1’s r ol down wid fvr… :P”

It is irritating enough when people try to abbreviate unnecessary words. I would really like to track one of these people down and ask them what they do with ALL that extra time they save by abbreviating the words. I mean barring how displeasing it looks some of them, like using ‘mah’ instead of ‘my’, does not make even a slight bit of sense. You are adding another character god dammit!!

The worst part, though, was when this other guy had commented on his status correcting his grammatical error.

“  *new 1s r ol… ”

If there was ever a face palm moment, this was it.

Cells on a Plane

Boarding done and a long flight ahead, I was bored already. I waited patiently as the flight attendant explained how to correctly put on my seat belt and how to blow into the life jacket in case of an emergency water evacuation.  Sometimes I am just confused as to why I look at these instructions every single time, then I look at the cute air hostess and realize why.

Soon, we had reached the part where the flight had started to make a head way towards the runway and I was really bored. I really needed to do something crazy, so I looked around for inspiration. I see the guy next to me typing something on WhatsApp on his phone. Ah, WhatsApp! How it has changed things around us.

So, anyway, I look at him and he is really engrossed in what he is doing and that’s when I decide what to do.

‘Excuse me,’ I called him in what would normally, in a non-flight situation, be considered as an average decibel volume and looked at him wide eyed. ‘She said, all electronic items to be switched off.’

‘Yes, yes, in a while,’ he was definitely startled but I had not had enough yet.

‘Are you crazy?’ I raised my voice and widened my eyes even more. ‘She said it will hamper the communication of the aircraft. It is about safety of all passengers. Switch it off. You will get us all killed!’

The guy turned redder than beetroot and immediately switched off his cell phone. I maintained a constant gaze of bewilderment as he did so. I controlled my laughter really hard and I had to do it even more because from the corner of my eyes I could see some other passengers take out their cell phones and switch it off as well.

That made my day and satisfied my hunger for craziness for the rest of the journey too.