Life in the Middle Lane

So, the gf and I were at Borders on Sunday in an effort, by her, to pry me away from the tv. Because watching hours of tv, in my pj’s, two days in a row on a 3-day weekend is bad?!?!?! LOL.

Anyway, as is my routine in mega-bookstores, I browsed the new fiction, self-help, philosophy, religion, history, and sex sections and came away with a stack of books to thumb through. This Borders didn’t have really good seating, no random benches tucked away in corners, no cushions on the floor, nothing even in the Children’s section. They did have four club chairs next to the cafe area, which was quite large and mostly empty.

So, the gf and took our stacks and sat at a table . While I was scanning the room for possible seating, I noticed this guy chillin’ in one of the club chairs with his legs propped up on the arm of the chair, talking on his cell phone, like he was in his living room. This was not a “I’m out in public, let’s make plans to talk later conversation” this was a “Let’s discuss what we have been doing for the past five years, in detail conversation” And we could hear EVERY WORD.

I hate this!!!! I am easily distracted and I was reading about how to be my more authentic self, so I needed to have a modicum of semi-quiet or at least normal business noise. But instead, I listen to this conversation. Not becasue I wanted to, but because it was so loud, I couldn’t help it.

The entire time, I was thinking I should go say something. I should tell this guy how he’s distracting me and the rest of the people over here. And I knew he was distracting everyone, because when I looked around at the other 6+ people that were sitting around, every time the loud talker laughed or got louder someone would sigh and roll their eyes.

And I wanted to get up, curse him out and tell him to shut up because we were all trying to read. I knew that the gf is even more distractable than I am at times, I was getting more and more annoyed and I couldn’t believe that this guy was really gonna continue to have this long-ass conversation!

I was having this internal argument with myself about how if I were a real leader I would have walked my ass over to this loud talker and kindly told him to please be quiet because he was disturbing us. I chided myself for being a wimp and not having the guts to at least shush the guy. Another part of me said, no don’t get up, he may start an altercation, he may beat you up or he may go out to his car get a gun and shoot you. (they can do this in Ga now)

A core tenet of leadership, in my book, is having the guts, balls, wherewithal, whatever- to speak the truth and shame the devil. And I didn’t have the balls to follow through… and I was a little ashamed of myself.

Fortunately for me, another gentleman was also super-duper annoyed and finally approached the guy and told him to shut the hell up because we were all trying to read and he was rudely having this now 30 minute conversation which was disturbing us. The loud talker looked around, and said, “But I’m talking quietly.” (yes, he seriously said that!!!!)  And only then did I find my voice to say, “no sir, we’ve been listening to you talk for half an hour.” Loud talker quickly got off the phone and left the store. (and I just knew he was gonna come back and shoot me.)

But you know what, other than me and the gentleman, no one, and there were several other men in the room, said anything to loud talker before he left. Maybe they felt that the problem had been handled, but damn, they could have added their two cents in making loud talker feel bad for being an idiot.

It just made me realize importance of a single voice. I could have argued with myself all day about speaking up, listening to that stupid conversation, surrounded by people who were mad, but unwilling to do anything about it, or having the same internal conversation with themselves. But all it took was one other person speaking up to give me the courage to speak up myself.

And, alas, the idiot was gone. I was pleased, and I was able to continue reading about the ethics of Batman and why he has never been able to kill the Joker.  Ya know, a utilitarian would say that killing the Joker is ethically sound because it would save all of  the lives that the Joker would otherwise take (just in case you needed to know that)