Dude! You're freaking me out!

I know I have joked about this stuff, but last week I found myself securely fastened in the center of one of my own remarks of jest.

Sometimes the occasion is required that I utilize a restroom at my workplace location. There are four urinals and all of them were vacant at the time. I strategically placed myself in front of the end one in case someone did enter the restroom, that left three of them to my left open and hopefully they would pick one that was at least one stall away. I have a comfort zone and when using a urinal, that comfort zone expands. Sometimes you get a social pee-er someone that despite having distanced locations, picks the closest station to an occupied one. You hope it never happens, but sometimes it does

Co-worker enters the bathroom I am thinking "Don't pick the stall next to me, don't pick it, don't pick it, don't pick it... oh great! a social pee-er!"

As he walks up to the stall next to mine he says "How's it going?"

I think "Oh no! not only is he picking the stall next to me... but he's a conversationalist! What's he gonna do next? put his arm around me?"

I glance over quickly to see if by chance he is talking to someone else. No one else is in the bathroom. He is staring intently at the wall in front of him. "Fine." I mutter out quietly.

Silence. Other than him picking the stall next to me when he had the choice of two other better locations, I calm myself as I assure myself that his socializing has ceased.

"How are things in recurrent going?" He suddenly blurts out

"I... uh... um... I am not working on any recurrent training courses for you right now." I stammer out.

He looks over at me like I am interrupting. I look back with a surprised look thinking "Well, you are the one talking to me!" Luckily I finish and turn and walk over to the sink. He begins talking again. This time the subject has deviated off to a new topic that I don't know anything about. "Who is he talking too?" I wonder. I look into the mirror and I see the bluetooth earpiece cradled on his left ear. "I'm an idiot! How embarrassing!" I growl under my breath.

Later that day I had to head over to the airport to get a new security badge issued as mine had expired. I parked in the employee parking lot and got on the bus that would take me to the terminals. The bus had two levels of seating. near the front of the bus there were two rows of seats with their backs to the exterior wall of the bus facing inward to each other. on the row of seats behind the driver there was also situated a large luggage rack for the crews to put their luggage on. On the upper level of seats in the back of the bus were 3 rows of double seats on either side of the aisle and one long bench on the very last row of the bus. A few ramp agents were seated in the back and a Delta flight attendant sat right behind the bus driver.

I sat down on the empty row across from the flight attendant. The ride was quiet except for the hum of the engine as it lurched the bus forward and the squeal of the brakes as they grappled the bus to a stop. Suddenly the flight attendant sitting across from me blurted out "Mmm hmm, I am on the bus right now" I looked around to see who she was talking to. She was staring out the window across from her. Up until that point I thought only crazy cat ladies talked to themselves. She did not look disheveled, hair seemed manicured, didn't wreak of cats and I didn't see a shopping carts nearby. She obviously had enough mental wherewith all to be gainfully employed as a flight attendant. Maybe she forgot her meds this morning. her conversation with herself stopped. Then she started talking about where she was going, a birthday party for her brother and Warren Buffet. She even paused as if she were listening to responses to her comments. She yammered on and on. I was so confused. I kept stealing glances at her to see if she was going to do anything more crazy or bizarre. She kept staring out the window. Then I saw something blink under her hair that was pulled down over her ears and I saw her phone cradled in her hand resting on the seat next to her. She was obviously talking on her bluetooth.

I am wondering if these bluetooth earpieces shouldn't have a giant orange flag that pops up when being used. You people don't know how confusing you are to other people. Of course you don't realize that, you are too busy talking on your phones.