Pages

Nov 10, 2010

Turn off your phone, fancy man

This Tokyo Metro Manners poster has a lot going on. Background: there are signs and announcements on many trains asking that cell phones be turned off near the priority seats, ostensibly to protect people with pacemakers. Don't get me started on that one. Though, if I had a pacemaker and there were any chance, however minimal, that having a few square feet in the city where there was a slightly reduced amount of electromagnetic radiation trying to scramble my heartbeat, I guess I'd want people to turn off their phones there. I suppose. But I've digressed.

So, here, we have the usual put-upon poster lady sitting in a priority seat with her child. (And what's happened to her usual partner in moroseness, now that she's had the kid? Has he abandoned her? Is that why she looks so glassy and vacant?) Lurking above her is a golden-haired man (foreigner? host?) in a flashy white coat. He whips his phone out and holds it aloft. Is this some kind of a threat? Is he going to throw it? Make an inconsiderate phone call? Zap all the pacemakers in range? No! This prince of a man is simply shutting off his phone. He is surrounded by a sparkly aura of good manners. Mother and child are agape.
I would be, too, if I ever saw this happen. Shutting off phones near the priority seats is the most flagrantly flouted of all the manners.

1 comment:

A. G. Booze said...

If YOU were the King of Fighters, YOU would do the right thing too! And I'm pretty sure he is.

Google Analytics Alternative