ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 4, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - The nation is not divided into Red vs. Blue, Republicans vs. Democrats or liberals vs. conservatives.
The nation is divided into those who think it would be a good idea to allow cell phone use on airplanes and those who would rather fly in the baggage compartment if this ever happens.
The FCC has announced it is considering the idea because new cell phones don't interfere with a plane's instruments like the old ones allegedly did.
Yes, there are phones on planes now, those tucked into the seatback. But have you ever seen a person using one of those phones? No. And that is because they are so expensive, only Oprah, Bill Gates and the chairman of Halliburton can afford to use them. (And they probably have their own planes.)
If personal cell phone use is allowed on passenger jets, however, planes will become what trains are already: unbearable.
You will get scores of people bellowing into their phones, sharing the tedium of their lives with all of us.
Though Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains often include a "quiet car" where cell phone use is banned, Amtrak (being Amtrak) marks the cars very poorly and doesn't enforce the rule at all.
The last time I rode in the "quiet car", a young woman kept yelling into her cell phone: "How come I am a better friend to my friends than my friends are to me? How come I can't find a 'me'? How come?"
I dunno. Could it be that your friends find your loud whining to be boring and unpleasant?
Imagine all this on a crowded jetliner, with people shouting louder to be heard over the jet noise. At least on a train, you can get up and try to find a quieter car. (Good luck.) What are you going to do on a plane? Step outside?
I am writing this a few hours after sitting in National Airport in Washington, waiting for a shuttle flight to Boston.
The flight was late, the waiting area crowded, and Mr. Toilet - - as he became known to scores of us - - was bellowing into his cell phone.
"I called to tell you what was clogging the toilet," he bellowed. "You'll never guess. Go ahead, guess. You'll never guess."
It was late morning and some people were finishing breakfast in the waiting area. What had clogged Mr. Toilet's toilet was not uppermost on their minds.
"Every few days, the toilet would run over," Mr. Toilet yelled. "Every few days. I plunged it and plunged it, but every few days it would run over. You know what it was?"
We did not. We did not want to know. But Mr. Toilet continued.
"I got one of them plumber's whatya-callits," Mr. Toilet said. "One of them plumber's things. I can't think what they are called. A whatya-callit."
Snakes! I wanted to yell at Mr. Toilet. They are called a plumber's snakes!
"So I used it and used it, but in a few days, the toilet backs up again!" Mr. Toilet yelled on. "Finally I called a plumber. And he comes over with a real heavy-duty whatya-call-it. Much bigger than mine. And guess what he found?"
I looked around the waiting area. Nobody looked like he wanted to guess.
"He brought up this wad, this mass, this clump, this gob of…" and here Mr. Toilet paused for emphasis, raising his voice even higher. "This mass of Teflon tape! A roll of Teflon tape! An entire roll. But it was like a giant wad by now!"
Mr. Toilet was clearly blown away by the experience. And he was calling everyone he knew to tell them about it. "What was a roll, an entire roll, of Teflon tape doing in my toilet?" Mr. Toilet wanted to know.
I think I know. I think somebody, on a previous flight, had been trapped near Mr. Toilet when he was on some other loud and annoying phone call. And that person got Mr. Toilet's address off his luggage, snuck in one night, and stuck a role of Teflon tape in his toilet.
Me, I could have thought of a better place to stick it.
Posted by rsimon at April 04, 2005 03:43 PM