Peep Show

We Cupcakes get irritated by lots of things. One of these is noise. More specifically, disturbing noise that encroaches on and penetrates one’s private sphere. A type of penetrating noise that particularly annoys this Cupcake is when people don’t turn off the tone on their phone keys, so that when they text, they might as well be sending the message in Morse code.

What is the point of having a tone on phone keys anyway? I could just about understand if you were stuck in an elevator during a power failure and the lights went off, then you might be reassured by the peeping of your phone as you were penning a quick text message for help. Other than that, I can’t think of a good reason for the key tones other than to irritate people like me.

The first thing I do when I get a new phone is turn off the key tones. It’s an easy thing to do, but sometimes I wonder if the reason that some people haven’t turned them off is because they don’t know how. If you’re using a Nokia, then go to Settings -> Tones. It’s the same menu where you choose your ring tone.

A couple of months ago I went on a long-distance trip on an ICE train. It was several hours to the next stop and the train was packed. Consideration for your fellow passengers is required. I was seated next to a pleasant-looking lady in the window seat, and next to me across the aisle was a lady, probably around 40, with a Blackberry.

From the moment the train set off, this lady was fiddling around with her Blackberry. Shortly after we left the station, she started texting. In Morse code, it seemed. The key tone was on and it was very loud. And the texts she was writing, incessantly, seemed to be pages and pages long.

The pleasant-looking lady seated next to me and I exchanged several looks (of disgust and exasperation) and I sent a couple of sighs across the aisle. I also stared at the lady and her Blackberry hard in the hope of her getting my message by telepathy but she remained unfazed and unaware – clearly the only method of communicating with her was by electronic means. Or direct speech, of course.

It must have been after about twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted peeping that I finally snapped and leaned over the aisle. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you think you could please turn your tone off?” The lady didn’t break peep stride and didn’t even look up. “I’ll do it when I’ve finished writing this e-mail,” she replied.

E-mail! I knew it. Nobody could be texting for that long. She was writing entire e-mails on the blasted thing. “I hope you will,” I told her. “Otherwise I might have to take it and throw it down the other end of the carriage.” I really did say that! No kidding! A mild mannered Cupcake like me!

It is a measure of how engrossed in her e-mails and how oblivious she was to her fellow passengers that she didn’t bat an eyelid, never mind raise an eye from the Blackberry screen. The pleasant-looking lady on my other side had been following this exchange eagerly. “What did she say?” she asked me. When I told her that the peeping would soon be abating, she was much relieved.

Earlier this week I had a similar experience, this time in a doctor’s surgery. There were about six or seven of us patients in there when a tall young Slavic-looking woman entered. She sat down and immediately got on the old telephone. Peep peep peep, pa-pa-pa-peep, pa-pa-peep, peep, peep, peep-peep, peeeeeeep. I fixed her straight away with the Cupcake glare but I swear these phone addicts are in a different universe. Since this was no Blackberry, however, I held out great hope of an end in sight, because like how much can you text until you say, I need to actually speak to that person?

And in fact, my patience was rewarded. After about only ten minutes of nonstop texting, the phone was laid to one side and the young woman picked up a magazine.

Peep-peep! Peep-peep! I nearly jumped out of my seat as you guessed it, the reply arrived. I cast a look around at my fellow patients but everyone else was pretending to be engrossed and undisturbed in their magazines. Once again, the young woman was straight back and bashing those peeping keys around.

I sent several loud sighs over but to no avail. This must have continued for nearly half an hour in all, albeit with the odd minute of break. The doctor was running late as well, which did nothing to alleviate impatience. In the middle of one long peeping session, the woman’s phone actually rung and she took the call, in a language unknown to me. Although as I did hear her say the word “Niet” a few times, I guessed it might be Russian.

After the call, she continued texting. What amazed me was that really nobody else said anything at all. Nobody even looked up. Now I am aware that I am not the most patient of persons, but I do think that this kind of behavior really goes beyond the pale. It was well after half an hour of almost incessant peeping and phoning that I finally managed to say something.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you think you could turn the tone off?”

“What?” she asked. I repeated my request, but apparently she still didn’t understand.

“Off,” I said. “Off.” But the word for “off” in German is the same as “out” (aus) and I was of course speaking German with her – as regular readers will know, I live in Germany.

“Ah,” she replied, suddenly understanding, and got up and left the room.

Well, that was that problem solved then, irrespective of how. At least I didn’t have to threaten to take the phone and throw it out of the window.