Could you speak up? The people on the next train can't hear you.

If you have headphones plugged into your phone so you can listen to music while you ride transit, you should consider taking them out to take a call.

Or you could just do what some lady on the skytrain did today and leave them in and yell into your phone because you can't hear yourself speak. Because I know that I really enjoy listening to a one-sided conversation, from across the train and over the music playing in my own headphones.

Keep it out of your pants

One of the few joys of taking transit instead of driving yourself somewhere is the ability be on your phone without threat of a ticket or killing someone. That being said, if you're going to check your phone every 10 seconds while you're sitting next to someone, don't keep putting it back in your pocket!

The guy next to me on the train this morning clearly didn't understand this idea. He was playing some sort of game on his ipod, but had a separate phone that he kept checking. Since his hands were busy with his game though, he kept putting the phone back in his pants pocket, which meant he also kept jabbing me with his elbow. Seriously, dude, is your lap broken? Because you could save us both the trouble and just leave it there.

Can somebody breathe on my phone?

Very rarely does anybody say anything on the bus worth repeating for any reason other than mocking them mercilessly. Yesterday however, I was riding the bus with 5 dorks who between marginally mockable, but not blog-worthy conversation topics suggested having a breathalyzer for phones. Now there's an app you could charge big bucks for and save many people from many a drunk text.

I also have to admit that my usual poker-face for eavesdropping nearly broke as one guy acted out himself drunk, wondering why he couldn't get his phone unlocked and eventually holding it out to a friend saying, "Could you blow on my phone?"

They went on to discuss a myriad of other ways one can get in trouble while drunk. This naturally led to someone suggesting breathalyzer locked wallets. Of course, lest this blog post lead you to believe there may still be hope for bus riders, I leave you with a follow up statement by one of the 5 amigos':
"I can get so drunk that I can't spell my own name, but I can always remember my pin number. And my name is J.R. ..."

As an added bonus, J.R. has one of the worst laughs I've ever heard. I thought it was fake at first, but he definitely laughed way too many times to be faking it. I managed to catch a recording of him on my phone. It took several attempts to get this video into a format that would upload. Sorry if it's a bit hard to hear. Enjoy!