I was on the train home from New York yesterday and I had the pleasure to sit across from a young woman of about 18 or 19 years old… She appeared to be a college student, wearing a Rhode Island College sweatshirt with her long blond hair in a ponytail. She spent most of the 3+ hour ride intermittently talking on her phone and listening to very loud music through her laptop headphones, and occasionally doing both. Normally I find people who speak loudly on their cell phones in public to be very rude. This was no exception. In this case however I was less annoyed and more amused. Over the course of about half a dozen phone calls I got to hear her make arrangements for a friend to pick up her “booze” at the “packy.” (This is New England speak for package store. In RI grocery stores don’t carry alchohol). That would be an order of “Like, 3 40’s, either Coors lite, Miller lite, or Bud lite,” to be exact. She then proceeded to ring up another friend to make sure she was supplied with ample marijuana so she could smoke a blunt later. Her friends were to convene at her apartment a little later on, she anticipated a laid back evening, considering Saturday night was spent at “mad sick house parties” (I think I got that right) at Rutgers during which “Some girl like sat on my LAP. Like, there were like 2 totally empty couches, yo, and I was sitting on this lazy boy yo, and she comes up and sits on my lap and proceeds to like have a conversation with me as if like nothing is wrong!” The fun ended at 6am and then she had to go to church with her mother in the morning. The weekend got off to a good start though because “Yo, like my brother, he’s 21 so he totally got me alcohol.”
It was abundantly clear that not only did she not mind the entire train knowing her business, but she actually wanted us to know about her life. I cringed a little bit, remembering how it felt when everything “bad” was novel, exiciting, and brag-worthy. It doesn’t seem so long ago, really. On the other hand though it sort of does, considering there was no way in the world I was about to shout about it to my friends over my cell phone. Back in my day we didn’t HAVE cell phones! Sure I had a car phone, but that was for emergencies only. Kids today:)