Standing In Line

Why do some people think nobody can hear what they are saying when they are talking on a cellphone in public?

I was standing in line behind a lady in a convenience store on the weekend. She was buying lottery tickets. More accurately, she was buying and scratching lottery tickets, seemingly oblivious to the line of other people growing like a tail behind her. I suppose she figured it was still her turn at the cash - no matter how long she planned to stand there buying and scratching lottery tickets - even though every other person in line was evil-eyeing her and trying to move her out of the way telepathically.

But it wasn’t working.

And then, of course, her cellphone rang. Not only did it ring, it had one of those incredibly annoying rings cellphones come preprogrammed with. You know the kind of ring I mean, where instead of sounding like a phone ringing, the phone, when it rings, sounds like a tiny mosquito kazoo orchestra playing Beethoven’s 9th.

And this lady’s cellphone was, naturally, buried deep somewhere inside her backpack-sized purse, which meant that, in addition to watching her play the lottery, we now also had to listen to mosquito Beethoven music while she fished around for her phone.

And do you think she bothered to get out of the way while she did this so someone else could pay for the quickly melting ice cream he was holding?

Nope.

You see - technically - it was still her turn. I don’t know what the legal definition of a “turn” in such circumstances is, but it probably boils down to something like “once I reach the counter I can do what I like until I’m finished doing it and as long as the cashier doesn’t tell me to stop.”

And convenience store cashiers are never that brave.

The woman, who seemed completely unconcerned with the swelling pileup of people behind her, finally found her phone and wedged it into the fleshy crook of her neck.

“Hello?” she barked, loudly. At the same time, she motioned for the cashier to slide another lottery ticket in front of her.

“What?” the lady bellowed into the phone. “Speak up! I can hardly hear you!”

Tired from standing in one spot for so long, she leaned her considerable girth against the counter and started slowly scratching away at her new lottery ticket and brushing the resulting flecks of scraped-off lottery ticket goo to the floor, where a pile of it was by now accumulating at her feet.

The cashier smiled and silently mouthed the following words to the rest of us: “I’ll be with y’all in a minute.”

“No, I don’t know what to cook for supper,” the lady said into her phone. “Got any ideas? No, not lasagna. I think Meghan is allergic to mozzarella cheese or something. The last time she had it she broke out in hives all over, even on her bum. But don’t tell anybody. She’d be mortified if she knew I told you.

“What? No, not leftovers, either. I cleaned out the fridge last night. I had to. It was stinking up the whole house. Honestly, if you walked in the front door last night just before seven o’clock you’d have thought everybody farted just before you got there.”

Here, she held up her hand in front of the cashier, five fingers spread open, and smiled.
This, I determined, was how you say, “I want five more tickets” in sign language, as that is what the cashier proceeded to deal her.

The woman started in on her tickets, talking the whole while about her eldest son, who was headed for college in the fall and whose girlfriend might be pregnant (which he doesn’t know about yet, so don’t say anything).

Eventually the ice cream I was holding melted completely and I left the store with very sticky hands.