can i call you back in a minute?

After class today I went to the restroom in the building. It's a pretty busy restroom, as far as they go. Typical public utilitarian type thing. So, as I'm in the stall, the cell phone of the person in the stall next to me goes off. I'm always surprised when people answer their phones when they are really in inconvenient places. Needless to say, she answered her phone.

"Hello? Oh yes, how are you? (in very professional voice. obviously this was not a friend) Can I call you back in two minutes? I'm just parking my car."

Parking your car? Interesting excuse. You are parking your car in the bathroom. What if the person on the other end heard one of the twenty toilets flush? Would you tell him your car was actually an RV? Or that you just drove by a port-o-potty?

My question is why did she answer in the first place? Rule numero uno of cell phones, or any phone call for that matter. If you can't answer, let them leave a message! I love voicemail; it should be up there as one of top 10 (20, 100?) inventions of the last century. I am sure I'm guilty of doing it sometime - answering the phone when I know I can't talk and asking the person on the other end if I can call back. But more often than not, I don't answer when I can't talk. It's efficient. I'm all about cutting out the middleman, or the non-conversation as it would be in this case.

So that is all that was really interesting today, which is not saying much. I had lab again which just ended. We finished in a reasonable amount of time, so my partner and I were both happy. As we were packing up, she said "I'm so excited we finished early, now I can go home and sleep!" She kind of raised her hand in what I thought was a high five gesture. So I went to give her a high-five. But I missed the boat on that one; she was just kind of doing a weird-one-handed-celebration wave. Has that ever happened to you? Misjudging a potential high-five? It's pretty humiliating. Few things can make a brown person go red; but that sure is one of 'em.

Question of the moment: Go home or go to the library for an hour? It's 10:00 PM (do you know where your children are?) Hmm. I really should go study; I have had no idea what the heck has been going on in class for the last 3 days.