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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The time I used my phone to battle another passenger's phone

Friday night I engaged in a match of dueling banjos with another passenger on my GO bus, but we used our phones instead of banjos.

It all started when a man boarded at the Oshawa Centre and sat behind me. Because he felt it was perfectly acceptable, he began to play some 90s era dancehall reggae at full volume, with no headphones. I grew up with this stuff and there's good dancehall and there's bad dancehall -- he played the bad dancehall. At first it was Supercat, then next up was Ninjaman. After three minutes of listening to this, I yanked out my headphones and turned to glare at this guy. He was oblivious, just staring out the window and pretending like none of this was possibly annoying. So I decided to play my own music, at full volume, and sank down in my seat to agressively "sleep" while Erasure's Love to Hate You blared out of my phone's speakers. When that didn't work, I selected Dj Chris Sheppard's remix of AC/DC's TNT and it effectively drowned out this guy's music. He stood up, and peered over the back of my seat to kiss his teeth at me. He muttered something I couldn't make out.

OH IS THIS BOTHERING YOU?

MY BAD.

It took a few seconds for me to realize he had shut off his music. I shut off my music and turned around. He glanced only briefly my way before returning his gaze to his phone.

DO IT. I DOUBLEDOG DARE YOU.

He didn't.

No one wants to listen to your shitty music and I'm sorry I subjected others to mine but it felt damn good to give someone a taste of his own medicine.

And no, I can't be the better person sometimes. Sorry, not sorry.

3 comments:

G said...

I can't believe this is a thing, but I've witnessed it myself several times both on the GO bus and the train. In the train incident, it was clear the person was trolling for attention because the moment someone spoke up he started verbally abusing her. I regret that I didn't hit the yellow strip but I guess I was just too shocked by the whole scene.

Jules said...

good for you! last week during the huge crap storm of delayed trains a woman sat next to me and proceeded to listen to every video that had noise on her facebook. Finally the girl across from her and myself told her to shut it at the same time. She sniffs and says "You don't have to say it twice". SO I look at her and say "I shouldn't have to say it once!" why are people so ignorant??!!

Tal Hartsfeld said...

I think it's some kind of power-and-control trip.
They just want to show everybody who's "boss".