Mysterious Encounters

[rheasilvia]

A little while ago, I was sitting in my favorite tea house, happily drinking tea and reading Guardian fanfic on my tablet, as you do. The woman at a neighboring table kept casting annoyed glances my way without ever quite looking at me. I wondered about this briefly and then ignored it.

Eventually, she came up to me and spoke thusly: "Excuse me, but your cell phone has been in my back this whole time. Are you going to be done using it soon?"

I blinked at her and eloquently replied: "... what now? My cell phone is doing what...?"

Upon which she decided that further conversation was useless, disgustedly snorted and shook her head, and sped to the counter to pay. She hastily collected her things and rushed out the door, never deigning to look at me again and leaving her tea half-drunk.

The waitress and I theorize that she was bothered by the radiation/bad cell phone vibes/whatnot coming off of my tablet. Incidentally, my tablet was on airplane mode, so it wasn't sending anything into her back. Also, the tea house has wifi (which I assume she was blissfully ignorant of). Also, good luck escaping cell phone radiation anywhere in this city...

Comments

[jo_lasalle]

OMG!

I find the radiation fear totally plausible after that story, but wow, I'm amazed that's still a thing and that the people freaking out about it manage to leave the house. O__o I think the last time I had someone freak out about cell phones in their vicinity was in, like, 2010...

"In my back"... LOL!

[rheasilvia]

When the entire city is full of wifi, cell phone towers and people both openly and concealed-carrying their devices, telling random people in your vicinity to cut it out isn't going to make any difference...

"In my back"...

It was confusing! :-) And I have never had anyone freak out about cell phones in real life before, not even back when they were new, rare and special. I honestly had no idea what she meant.

[jo_lasalle]

I confess in the moment when you weren't even using a phone, I probably wouldn't have got it either. "What do you mean? I didn't throw my phone at you..."

I lived for a while with some very Öko people, and had a sort-of-aunt who was easily panicked about her pacemaker, that's where I encountered this in the wild! But, ages ago. I think even that sort-of-aunt now has a mobile phone. *g*

[rheasilvia]

In the case of pacemakers, I can definitely understand some nervousness in the early days of the technology, considering that microwaves evidently can have a negative effect. So, yeah. But at this point, I think those fears have been disproved when it comes to cell phones - and I doubt this lady had a pacemaker! So I would have needed some lead-up, at least. ;-)

I've been wondering how I would have reacted had she bothered to explain, and I suppose she was right to storm off, because I would just have referred to the airplane mode (which she probably would not have understood) - and of course I had an actual cell phone in my bag.

The waitress said she's a regular (and is always odd). Let's hope she never finds out about the tea house's wifi hotspot. ;-)

[akk]

I admit reading "...concealed-carrying..." in context of mobile devices just made my day!
Thank you. :)))

[jo_lasalle]

YES! I forgot to mention this. *g*

[rheasilvia]

Heee! Glad to amuse. :-)

[naye]

I am so baffled by this kind of thing but I know it happens? Unless people I know all over are running into the same tablet/phone hating woman...

[rheasilvia]

Really, it's a common thing? I had no idea! This is the first time I've run into someone who expressed such fears in real life. These people must lead extremely stressful lives, considering cell phone radiation is everywhere around them all the time...

[clevermanka]

[rheasilvia]

Indeed! :-) I expect it's a sentiment the poor harried lady very much shares. It can't be fun living among this many people while in fear of cell phone radiation...

[trobadora]

OMG, WTF??????

[rheasilvia]

I really did not know what was going on! I was pretty much just O_O at her. ;-)

It really can't be easy for her. I imagine she has encounters like this all the time...

[firestar]

*blinks repeatedly* What the what now? o_O

[rheasilvia]

Yep, that was pretty much my reaction. You'd think she'd have a more understandable explanation ready, considering she must encounter a lot of people using mobile devices in her vicinity...

[firestar]

You'd think so. o_O

[extrapenguin]

Ha! Oh dear, that is sadly hilarious. (Though now I'm jealous of the fact that you have a tea house. The perils of living in the land of the coffee drinkers...) (I'm reminded of that one thing I heard about people who live next to nuclear power plants living longer than those who don't – because the people who worry themselves to an early grave won't live there.)

[rheasilvia]

We have several tea houses! :-) It's so wonderful - many cafés still think making tea means tossing a cheap bag of Earl Grey into a cup of hot water and turning it into industrial-strength sludge. But now there are more and more places for tea drinkers to go, too.

Yeah, I rather pity this woman - she must have a pretty rough time of it, considering cell phone radiation is impossible to avoid anywhere around here.

[demitas]

Wow, that's.... a thing, lol. What a weird way to phrase it, too!

[rheasilvia]

So weird! I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Which is also puzzling, because she must have this conversation all the time! You'd think she'd be used to explaining what she means to puzzled people...

[china_shop]

Haha, how confusing! That poor woman.

[rheasilvia]

Yeah, I feel pretty sorry for her, too. It's rough being afraid of cell phone radiation in this day and age - although at least she only appears bothered by what she can actually see. I mean, the tea house has wifi, and I'm sure everyone there had a cell phone somewhere about their person, and it's in the middle of the city...

[geeklover80]

I would have had no clue how to respond to that gibberish.

Stacey

[rheasilvia]

Me neither! I pretty much just stared at her. Another confusing thing to me is why she didn't offer some kind of explanation - she must have this kind of exchange all the time, so shouldn't she be used to puzzlement as the first reaction?

But as I mentioned in a diferent comment, if she had bothered to explain, I would probably just have referred to the airplane mode (which she probably would not have understood), and not stopped using my tablet. So I guess she was right to just storm off, since I was a hopleless case who didn't even know what she meant. ;-)

[asya_ana]

Um... I'm baffled? Good luck sitting next to someone without a phone! *sigh*

[rheasilvia]

Exactly! I'm sure everyone there had a phone, even if they didn't have it out on the table. And even when a phone is not in active use, it still connects to cell towers and downloads data and all that...

Plus of course the tea house has wifi. Which she evidently doesn't know, since she's a regular there.

[unrelaxing]

This is WILD. Imagine glaring at houses as you walk past because you're just getting their wifi... radiation?