There have been many times when I’ve lent my cell phone to a stranger on the street to use. People forget their phone, they lost their phone, or their battery died. I understand that “shit” happens, and they need to contact someone. Typically people are overly thankful and make their calls as short as possible. Explaining to the person that they are calling that the phone they are currently on is a strangers and pass whatever information they need to pass to that person. I rode the “locals” bus to get to the Las Vegas airport. Not many people are aware of a very easy bus to take that goes straight to the airport for only $2. But since it is a local bus, the clientele is very different from the “Strip” bus.
During this bus trip I was looking at the time on my cell phone and a guy asked if he could borrow my cell phone. I of course said “sure” and gave him my phone. “Hey man, how is it going?” ”What are you up to? Oh yeah, that sounds great!” “I need my mom to send me more clothes.” “It sucks man, I don’t have a cell phone right now. All the money I have is this change I’m holding in my one hand.” Blah blah blah blah blah. Slowly my insides started to boil. It is obvious that this guy is just carrying on a normal conversation and he is not talking about anything pertinent. I start to give the death stare to this guy. But conveniently for him, he is able to divert it by not looking at me.
Just because I don’t like to talk on my cell phone, it doesn’t mean it is open season for others to use it. I have the senior citizen plan on minutes, which I never come close to using. But this guy was obviously going to try to put a dent into it. 10 minutes in and my blood was boiling. I say to the guy, “Hey I only get so many minutes, can you wrap up this conversation?” He has the nerve to give me the hand. No apology. Just the palm of his hand held up. I’m about to rip the phone from his hand, but in my head I’m saying “Patience is a virtue Kim. Patience is a virtue.” But my other half was saying, “F&%$ patience and just rip the phone from his hand.”
End of story. I get my phone back when the bus stopped at the airport and I was standing over him with my hand held out. He talked on my phone for over 15 minutes. That is more time that I put on it in a whole month.
In retrospect. I don’t know why I got so worked up over this guy. He really wasn’t hurting anything. I have plenty of minutes. But his disregard and lack of disrespect towards me still irks me.
In an unrelated matter. I managed to catch the last light rail that goes to Seattle from the airport. Midway a girl boards and proceeds to sleep. She throws up and the rest of the trip was spent in a cloud of puke stench. It was like I stuck my head in the toilet after someone threw up in it. I was too scared to hop off and hop back into a different car, since it was the last train. So I just stuck my nose inside my shirt and counted down till the Westlake stop. At Westlake, the few people that were on that car were pressed on the door ready to get out. Even one guy yelled out “Please open the door and save us!”.
I don’t lend my phone to strangers.
If they are having a legitimate emergency, I’ll call the police for them.