i hate trains! well, i don’t hate trains, but i hate people in trains…
yesterday i took the train to zurich and back and both ways were nightmares.
on the way there:
as soon as the train is rolling this girl takes out her mobilephone and starts telling someone in a VERY VERY loud voice about a job-interview she just had – in all possible and imaginable detail! the questions they had asked, the answers she had given. VERY loud! and what makes it even worse, she is from st. gallen, the eastern most part of switzerland, where the dialect sounds like they have a severe sickness to their throat [halskrankheit]. it is a very loud and very pointy dialect. like needles in your ears. we in bern hate it!
i can feel the tension in the train raising as there is no way to ignore her. then, after she has talked for 10 minutes to one person, she hangs up – everybody in the train is giving off a huge sigh of relief – but she immediately calls someone else. same story. all the details. again. everybody is biting their lips in silent agony.
i look for the walkman in my bag. damn i forgot the headphones.
finally, as the girl repeats all this to a third person, a grumpy old man gets up and asks her to speak less loudly. ‘we are all forced to witness this’, he informs her. and – surprise – the girl shuts up! wow.
i ask myself, what will happen, when the grumpy old men will all have died. nobody will say a word to noisepolluters dishing out there private dramas in public as we are all too busy being cool….
on the way home:
a group of kids is having a screaming contest. what’s even worse, they are all these cute-as-buttons cuddly kids.
no grumpy old man around.
nobody says a word.