Just driving along

My car has always been a sound studio on wheels. I just crank up the music and sing at the top of my lungs. I imagine anyone who passes me (or more likely I pass) must be thinking “that guy looks pretty silly” or “I wanna be on whatever that guys taking” because I look very happy and I’m having a really good time singing my little heart out.

Now cell phones have added a whole new dimension to what people look like while they are driving. For the most part, I think people look like they are talking to themselves and quite possibly have multiple personalities. They yell, they laugh, they curse…seemingly at no one. Of course there’s the inevitable pointing, waving, hands flailing all over the place, which does create issues with the whole keeping your hands on the steering while driving thing, which I’m pretty sure they taught (and still teach) in driver’s ed.

With the warmer weather now upon us, car windows are down which leads to endless opportunities to overhear conversations which you probably aren’t meant to hear. Of course, people do have a tendency to talk rather loudly while they are driving and they also think that they are in a world of their own just because they are in a car. Well, I’m here to tell you are not in world of your and people will hear you if you are yelling at the top of your lungs to your friend on the other end of the conversation.  Yelling so loudly in fact, that some folks might think you were actually trying to have the conversation long distance without the use of the phone.

Last week on Millburn Avenue was a great one. Right outside the front door of my office, a twenty-something year old guy was having a conversation with one of his buds. The conversation taking place could be heard by anyone passing within 50 feet of this guys car. Pedestrian traffic near his car pretty much came to a standstill when he yelled out “so I was telling this girl to go down on me…” I gotta yell you, that’s a real head turner. To add to my hysteria, a few folks around me stopped, looked at the guy and continued on their merry way as if they hear this stuff all the time and…well…maybe they do.

A total lack of privacy is part of the mobile phone generation. Not too long ago, you had phone conversations in a private place, most likely your home or your office.  Maybe a phone booth and even most of those had doors. Now phone conversations are part of the public airwaves. Walking around, shopping, at the gym…planes, trains and automobiles, people are yacking on their cell phones with seemingly little regard for who’s listening.

So remember, when you are driving around with the windows open and/or the top down, having a conversation with one of your buddies, that might not be the best time to be discussing your previous night’s sexual exploitations. Kind of make’s you sound like a dick or maybe a Wiener.