Actually, I'm not sure if she is dead, so apologies if she is reading this.
Anyway, my wife, mother and I went to dinner the other night at our favorite local restaurant. About halfway through our meal, a couple sits down at a table near us.
The guy was wearing leather loafers with no socks, which he immediately slipped off, so he was sitting there barefoot. (Just imagine the stank of a pair of feet in leather with no socks.) It was vile.
Then, this jerk and his mousy wife proceed to each take out their BlackBerries and start emailing God knows who. Then her phone rings with some obnoxious ring tone set to loud (I think it was Barry Manilow performing Rick Astley - see previous post) and she starts gabbing away as he checks emails and rubs his fat, smelly, cheesy, toe-jam encrusted feet. (Newsflash, Porky: That extra 50 pounds you are carrying around your waist pretty much eliminates any chance of you nailing down the Don Johnson look, even without the socks.)
Do I sound shrill? Tough. There should be certain basic levels of civil behavior and keeping your fetid feet in your shoes while dining in public should be one of them.
The email thing I don't really care about. They clearly deserve each other.
The cell phone thing is something we have all encountered. If you are interested in making a statement about that, try this:
Buy a cheap mini-recorder/dictation device and carry it with you. (They sell them at office supply stores for $20). The next time you are on a train, in a plane, at a restaurant, at the movies and someone is talking on their cell phone more loudly than they would otherwise be conversing, just turn on your tape recorder and hold it up to their face.
When they object, just say "You were talking so loud, I figured that you wanted everyone to hear it, so I am taping it and will be putting it up on on my blog when I get home. Was I mistaken?"
Let me know how it goes.