You see them everywhere, those ipod people wearing earbuds, with wires trickling from their ears like some sort of plague symptom. And there are hands-free phones, which, I suppose, are a great invention if you can’t refrain from talking all the time and simply must phone people while you’re driving. Unless my eyes deceived me, I believe I’ve seen the mutant offspring of these two gadgets.

I was waiting for the bus, when some guy with earbuds trickling from his ears started having a conversation with the warm spring air. Apparently the air was answering him, too. I soon realized that he was talking on a phone, via his earbuds; I suppose it must have had a microphone somewhere, but this guy apparently didn’t “do” the microphone thing. Instead, he shouted so that everybody at the busstop—and every passing downtown shopper or businessperson—could have the pleasure of sharing in his conversation. I wondered, as he chatted loudly with thin air, if he was intending to exude the image of a crazy person orating to the downtown public.

But I know he was talking on the phone, because he was holding his cellphone (into which the earbuds were plugged) and waving it around as he spoke (I guess “hand talkers” benefit from making gestures even when their conversation partner can’t see them). The thing is, he had to shout every single word (probably because he scorned talking into the device’s microphone)… your phone is in your hand, is it so hard to raise it to your ear and speak into it like a normal person?? Well, the guy boarded the bus with everyone else and continued to shout into general airspace—which happened to be mostly my airspace since he chose the seat next to mine.

I have never owned an ipod, and earbuds hold a particular disgust for me… especially so, now.