You know those really annoying people who insist on having loud conversations on their cell phones while they sit next to you on the train?
Well, I discovered something even worse:
Really annoying drunk people who insist on having loud conversations divulging way too much information on PAY PHONES.
One night after school, I was waiting in North Station for the 10PM train as usual, when a rather hairy and largish young man stumbled in and wandered over to the pay phones. The fact that he was very inebriated was given away by his flushed features, his inability to walk fully upright, and the reeking aura of alcohol he left in a trail behind him as he passed by.
This is, of course, not so unusual, so I barely gave him a second thought when he first came into the waiting area.
But then he picked up the pay phone and started drunk-dialing. And sadly there was just no way not to notice that.
I was standing only about 10 feet away from him and could hear every word he said. Not that my proximity to him made any difference, since people on the other side of the station clearly could hear him just as well as I, if their dropped jaws and blushing faces were any indication.
At first, I tried to focus on reading an assignment for class, but that’s much more easily said than done when the drunken idiot behind you is a spouting a very loud verbal whirlwind in an attempt to convince the girl he’s speaking to on the pay phone to have a threesome (or foursome or whatever) with him.
“It’ll be just you and me and Tina in the room, I promise.”
(A pause)
“But I thought you liked Tina?”
(A pause)
“I’m sure Tina will go.”
(Another pause)
“Hey, well then I’ll get Joey to go in on it, too. How bout that?”
(A longer pause)
“No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you, you know I wouldn’t, baby.”
Most of what the guy said was sheer drunken babble, so I won’t bother to repeat it. However, towards the end, it got a wee bit more interesting.
“What? Are you still mad about that?”
(A loud and incoherent noise from the person on the other end)
“If you come over, I’ll give you back your leopard print bra.”
(A pause)
“Yeah, just come over, and I’ll give you back your bra”
(More loud, angry-sounding noises)
“I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t do that, you know that’s a lie, I wouldn’t do that”
(Again, the angry noises)
“I didn’t mean to take it, but just come on over, and I’ll get Tina and Joey and I’ll give you back your leopard print bra, I promise”
(Another pause)
“You can trust me baby, you know you can trust me baby.”
This obviously is the sort of conversation that should be kept private. No one else wants or needs to know about what went on with this girl and her leopard print bra or what he hoped would happen again! But now EVERYONE in North Station (and probably everyone in the dive bar across the street too, which is no doubt exactly where he came from) does know, thanks to a one-sided yelled conversation courtesy of this foolish drunk guy. Granted, there are normally not a lot of people waiting for trains this late at night, but the 15 or so of us who were all exchanged looks of utter disbelief at the complete stupidity of this guy.
And, as always, it gets better (or worse, from my point of view).
He harassed the girl on the pay phone for the better part of twenty minutes and everyone in the station was relieved when he finally hung up the phone.
Except me.
Despite trying very very hard to appear totally engrossed in my reading material, I somehow managed to look approachable (Damn me and my niceness!) because he then decided to turn his attention to me.
As I noted earlier, there were not a lot of people in the waiting area, so there really was no good reason why he had to stand directly next to me (and let me say, wow, did he ever reek!)
I didn’t even look up and acknowledge him in anyway, yet he still insisted on trying to chat me up.
Drunk Guy: So, what are you reading?
Me: School work.
DG: Oh, yeah? Are you a teacher?
Me: Nope.
DG: What’s it about? (gesturing towards the research study I was struggling to read)
Me: It’s about the positive effects of arts education on the development of a more involved cultural policy for the US.
That shut him up for a moment.
But not long enough.
DG: So, are you going to school to be a teacher?
Me: No.
DG: Oh.
DG: Where do you go to school?
Me: In Boston.
DG: Oh.
DG: Where do you work?
Me: In Boston.
DG: Oh.
After several minutes of back and forth like this, he finally took the hint and slurred “Well, I’ll stop bothering you now. Have a nice night.”
The really sad part is, I felt a teensy bit bad that he thought he was bothering me.
But, well, he was.
And, to be quite frank, what on earth would he expect from any girl who just spent the previous twenty minutes within earshot of his drunk-dialing and unnecessary-detail spewing? Did he think he was in a magically soundproof “Pay phone bubble” and that no one else could hear his conversation?
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that if you yell in a large open area, everyone around you is going to hear Every. Single. Word.
Whether they want to or not.
Usually, not.