On A Lighter Note: A call for a little decorum

When it comes to rude behavior, the cell phone is an accomplished accomplice.

By ANDREA SIMANTOV
People sitting in cafe 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
People sitting in cafe 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
I recently went to a dinner party where there were many Israelis in attendance, and I must inform you that when it came to playing the etiquette card, they outclassed the Yankees in the room hands down. The Sabra women were coiffed beautifully, and the men all had ties. Not so for the Anglo men, who assayed to replicate a look last worn by David Ben-Gurion at a 1930 meeting of Mapai. Many (not all) of the Anglo women go for the dinner dress with running shoes look and seem to have abandoned their once impenetrable relationships with the local hairdresser.
“Utilitarian chic” may be what they whisper in the privacy of their homes, but from what I have seen, when it comes to that elusive je ne sais quoi, the non-natives may have left it somewhere between the mid-Atlantic and the lower shores of the Mediterranean.
People still complain about the smoking, but here, too, one can choose to see what he wants. Every culture has its local tough kids who, when asked not to smoke in a particular area, answer with shrugs and bravado and defiantly puff away. But this form of behavior has no monopoly here. If you attempt the same request on tough kids in a Brooklyn shopping mall or in the heart of London, I can assure you that thugs are thugs. It’s a universal thing. I have yet to ask an Israeli not to smoke and be refused. More often, I’m showered with apologies. Perfection? Nah. Progress? Yer darn tootin’.
And with a plethora of cooking shows and other near obsessions with fine dining, the Israelis-only-know-felafel cliché has also gone the way of the dinosaur. Years ago if one wanted to eat well and kosher, a hotel dining room was one’s best bet. Other than a working-class shwarma best washed down with a cold soda, Israel was a virtual culinary wasteland. But today? I do not have enough available days on my personal calendar (or enough cash in my bank account) to experience the exciting eateries that are flourishing throughout the country.
HOWEVER, LEST the reader believes that this lady doth protest too much, I can tell you that the new chutzpah, the new rudeness, the new how-crass-can-one-get arena is the cell phone. Even typing these words in the privacy of my home this morning makes me wince. Because I will soon dress and leave the quiet of my little haven and, even before arriving at the office, find myself privy to some of the most personal details of the human experience.
In lieu of driving my car, I like to ride the bus when time allows. It takes longer to get to work, but there lis something very relaxing about the early morning anonymity of sitting alongside strangers who, like me, are waiting for the day to unfold. Some stare out the windows. Some pray quietly from small siddurim or books of psalms. Some read the paper. That is how the morning bus ride used to be.
Briiinnnngggg! “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”; “Get Down, Baby and Do It to Me”; Boop-boop-boop. The relentless cacophony of creative alerts coming from those little earboxes is enough to drive the average person mad, but that isn’t the most shocking aspect of cell phone use. What is most astounding is that no one conducting eardrum-breaking conversations thinks he is being rude, that there are boundaries of decorum that cannot be traversed, that screaming out the details of a nephew’s home renovation is everyone’s business, that the bus – or theater or physician’s waiting room – negates all laws of propriety.
This isn’t to say that a) I haven’t gotten some good ideas about cooking Moroccan fish by trying not to listen to some grandmother pass the time on the way to the shouk; b) some very nice dresses are available in a well-known shop in Ra’anana, but you’d better get there quickly because the better styles and colors are going fast; or c) Hezi’s date with a girl called Nomi didn’t go as well as he hoped.
But the worst? The most irritating conversations that are chirped at previously uncharted decibels? English-speaking seminary girls who evidently ride the buses in a collective endeavor to find the best latte in the country. “I’ll meet you on Emek!!!” “When did you get to the tahana?” “I can’t. I just ate. Okay, you convinced me!” Clear skin, shiny hair and a bounce to their steps as they hop on and off the bus with ease, they obliviously share Long Island’s Five Towns and England’s Manchester happenings with the locals. It isn’t that the cell phone abusers don’t care about the other riders. They don’t see us. And obviously they don’t see – or hear – themselves.
I have become convinced that the inability to silence one’s cell phone is directly correlated to the interest level of a given activity. For example, I know someone who refuses to tear his eyes away from his Blackberry for even a minute during work meetings. Every message that comes into his unit is an “emergency,” and apologies are offered as he ignores other attendees and takes “just this call.”
A LOT of cell phone ringing can be heard at funerals, especially during the more heartfelt eulogies. After all, who wants to be reminded of his own mortality? And classical music concerts (madrigal recitals in particular) are hotbeds of phone ringing. Especially during the rests between movements. More than once have I been embarrassed for concert organizers and conductors who turn to the audience before the start of the program and request that “all cell phones be turned off.” Ouch.
They shouldn’t even have to ask.
This week I attended an evening of stand-up comedy, and no one’s cell phone rang. Was it an infusion of self-discipline and class that made folks silence their wretched contraptions? Or could it have been that, unlike Renaissance music or burying people, no one wanted to miss the fun?
I can’t say for sure, but I think that if I were forced to choose between setting target goals for recalcitrant employees or listening to famous comedians reflect on visiting Israel for the first time, my choice is clear: I’d opt for the joke.
Perhaps if we spent more time with the phone turned off, we could tune in to much more than our ring tone.