Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - Social Experiments

Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Social Experiments
So, I decided that I was in desperate need of an ice cream sundae this morning. My neck is hurting, things have been less than grand with the recent and sudden passing of a friend from college and his little boy, and I just want some damn ice cream. So after lunch I convince my work friend that she too needs a trip down to the closest ice cream shop - Ben & Jerry's - where we'll partake of a nice sundae that's sure to not be good for us.
We get in to Ben & Jerry's and there's a couple in front of us. They're ordering, so I wander around to look at the flavors available. I notice, sitting in a corner of this extremely small shop, a kid - he's probably 16 or 17, but it's really hard to say cause I don't stop and stare at him - and he's just hanging out with a spoon in his mouth. Not a moment later his phone starts playing some serious racket. Now, when I say racket I do not mean my mother's definition of racket which is as follows: any noise that she does not deem to be pleasing to her ears. No, this was true racket - sounded like a broken walkie talkie stuck in the receive mode with all channels meshing together. Now, when my phone rings I answer it. Even if I'm enjoying the song it plays I answer it. At no point in time do I ever just listen to the song over and over and over again for the fun of it. That is what this kid was doing - to the broken walkie talkie racket. So finally, after a good 2 minutes, he changes it from the racket to the recent Rhianna release. Here's where the gettin' gets good. Not only is the song playing on his phone, he is singing along..... loudly. And not only is he loudly singing along to the song playing on his phone, but he is jammin' out to it - spoon in hand. As I mentioned before, he's sort of in a corner, and he's obstructed from the other patrons' view by a wall. I only knew he was there because I ventured up to look at the flavors. I realize at the moment of his jam-out, that his reflection can clearly be seen in the glass covering the ice cream. The kid is gettin' down like it's 1985 and there's some cardboard about to be laid out on the sidewalk. Truly amazing. But anyway, he's singing, and jammin', and whatever else and finally the song ends and he says "man I love that song", and everyone continues to ignore him as they had been doing. My co-worker says "what if I just walk over there and smack him upside the head." I agree that this would be truly funny and tell her that voilence such as that is perfectly acceptable under such extinuating circumstances. At this point he puts on yet another song - our order still hasn't been taken and we're only second in line, so we opt for Panera, turn around and exit stage right.
Feeling as though we've just escaped a cameo on Punk'd, we head to Panera, get a brownie and get back in the car. On the five minute drive back to work we witness yet another social experiment driving down the road. Seriously - lady (I think, but one can never be sure) jammin' out to her radio - not just singing along (cause I serious love to sing along to the radio), but waving her arms all out the window like she's at Fur or something. Seriously???!!! Seriously.....