You: Vaguely teenaged girl with bright green fake nails driving a beat-up SUV while simultaneously talking on a cell phone, smoking a cigarette, and going through the bank drive-thru.
Me: Not-so-young mother of two driving a minivan, giving my undivided attention to the task at hand, namely conducting a bank transaction that I initiated by, you know, driving into the drive-thru. Well, I was a little distracted by having to glare and roll my eyes at you. Not that you noticed.
You: Then showing up in MY personal coffee shop less than five minutes later, still talking on the cell phone and still not bothering to cut off the conversation long enough to actually speak to the guy taking your order. He owns the shop. Did you know that?
Me: More with the glaring and the eye-rolling. Not that you noticed.
Hey, I'm all for the multi-tasking. In fact, I find the inability to multi-task while nursing to be one of the more frustrating aspects of early parenting. If only I could nurse and blog! Or nurse and clean the kitchen. Or nurse and shave my legs. At least this time I can nurse and talk on the phone, thanks to Bluetooth. But I digress. Anyway, I'm down with the multi-tasking, or whatever the young people would say these days to indicate approval. But that girl? I can't be down with that.
If you choose to conduct some kind of face-to-face business--whether that's banking at the drive-thru or buying groceries or ordering a latte--you should damn well take a moment to finish up your oh-so-important mobile phone conversation so that you can give your attention to the person trying to serve you. And don't get me started on the driving while smoking AND talking on a cell phone. Put a sandwich in the other hand and we've got a roving deathmobile because she's steering with her knees.
Or all this hostility could just be a desperate attempt to distract myself from my own shortcomings. Case in point? I almost didn't go through the drive-thru because I was going to walk in to the bank. Until I remembered that I had a baby in the backseat. That's right, I forgot about the baby. Perhaps I shouldn't be bragging about my multi-tasking skills.