At the ATM in the lobby of my employer's building, I fumbled for the glasses that were still on my desk. Suddenly, a belch worthy of Mount St. Helens startled me out of communing with my digital banker. I looked to my left. There, oblivious to my presence, was a porky, middle-management financial type in a bad suit calling up some cash. You can be strolling down a sun-drenched avenue, perusing cleverly dressed store windows, musing on a moment from an erotic afternoon long past, or simply trying to remember what the hell you were supposed to get at the market, when without warning, your zone of privacy is disrupted by a headset zombie.
Mouths blaring, arms flailing, they intrude with abandon.
And oh, are they self-important. But cell-phone headset zombies exude an air of pomposity that's much more annoying. They're high-tech hip, running on Internet time, and can't be bothered with Luddite niceties like not blabbing in the ear of someone whom they've never seen before and likely never will again. They have lunches to do, places to be, arrangements to firm up, portfolios to manage. And they're dangerous.