I used to curse BART tunnels back in the day when I used to save my phone conversations for BART. Like when I had to reach someone - if only for a minute - just as I was somewhere between 24th/Mission and the Transbay Tube. No matter now. Live and learn. It's just as well, anyway, since nothing is so critical that it can't wait for when I've exited the station.
Perhaps that is why the spectacle you made of yourself was so much more enjoyable to me, Lisa. Yes, Lisa, I'm talking to you. Why should you care that I announce your name for all to see? You had no problem saying it in front of all the surrounding (and exceedingly quieter) BART patrons as you screamed into your phone from MacArthur all the way into the city, or so you might have done all the way through the transbay tube if you could have. You would also have done it between 19th and 12th Street Oakland had the tunnel not cut you off cold.
You saw fit to scream into your phone at some poor customer service rep from god knows which company who failed to deliver some item or other of which you had to know (and right away, goddamnit!): "well, WHEN WILL IT ARRIVE?" and "ARE YOU SURE 6-8 WEEKS?" and, then saying "can you HURRY UP? I'm about to go through a tunnel." I had to give you some credit for knowing what was imminent, but there was never a more beautiful sound to me than hearing you say "and WHO am I speaking to? HELLO? HELLO?" as the BART descended into the tunnel between MacArthur and 19th Street, and your inane conversation disappeared into the ether. How many times have I cursed that same tunnel in days of yore, and yet, ironically, here I was inwardly singing its praises; and were it not for the constraints of propriety, I'd have summoned my inner Nelson (of "The Simpsons" fame) to point at you and utter: "HA HA!"
I'm sure you think that every single one of us BART riders who are reading, or trying to catch some well-earned z's, or better yet, simply zoning out to the white noise of relative calm have no greater desire than to hear you scream into your phone over some mishap over at Corporation X, where presumably Computer A failed to deliver a message to Employee B, which caused a failure at Central Office C, preventing the shipment of Product D to Customer E (that's you!) . . . of course, all these events were conspiring to make life so bloody difficult for poor little you - incidentally, the most important person in the whole world (and damnit, as I'm sure you've cursed, when will the rest of the world realize this?) The thing is, I'm not even one of those overly sensitive citizens who feels the need to roll eyes at every phone user on BART - there are many who use them quite discreetly, because, by god, those microphones are not designed so that you have to scream into them to be heard. Not that I'd expect a twit like you to know that.
Well, I hope you enjoyed your lunch with your friend who works on the 26th floor of some building in the Financial District, Lisa. What, what? Why yes, of course I know this detail, since you felt the need to pick up your phone yet again at West Oakland to make lunch plans. Lord only knows that an old dog like you can't be taught - only this time, you were talking to your friend. Which means you could have used a gentler - and for fuck's sake - your quiet voice, but it's clear that you don't have one.
And so, Lisa, my painful MC is with an uncannily well-timed ability to drop my social graces just long enough to tell you to shut the fuck up.