Earbuds

Earbuds. You wouldn't be surprised if you found someone jogging across the street with a pair on, or waking their dog or texting their boyfriend; sometimes people just chill, sitting down having their "Cup o' Joe" while wearing them. I'll admit, I've somewhat become a victim of the earbud craze; every day I take the bus home they're the first thing to come out of my backpack and straight into my ears. Maybe it's because I love music too much...oh, whatever.

I remember one day when I had forgotten my earbuds. I noticed it the moment I walked into school, and I could picture them sitting on top of my laptop in my sister's room. I thought the bus ride home would be hell (yes, that's how much I love music), but once the bus started moving I realized how quite the bus was. I looked around, and almost every single person had a pair on. Some didn't have earbuds, so they were glued to their phone screen; others who didn't have phones with them stared out of the window, like they were in some weird melodrama contemplating their entire life. It was awkward. When I was in middle school the bus driver had a hard time shutting the kids up, so much so that often she would pull over and give a face-to-face chat with the group of kids in the back who were causing all of the commotion. Now it was just silence...and I was kind of scared to be honest. I was scared of how stupid people had become. Looking into the screens I saw nothing but Facebook and Twitter pages; girls would type up some weirdly deep, emotional quote to share (how come they can talk like that online but not in their English class?), or maybe they would pout their lips and take pictures of themselves (I believe the official term is "selfie") and caption it with an insult towards themselves.

It was disgusting. I wanted to smack everyone with my textbooks in hopes that some of the words would come flying off of the pages and into their brains. The people they were texting were people they had just seen getting onto the bus, and some had their friends sitting in the seat parallel to them.

The silence was deafening (or maybe it was just me screaming in my head about how stupid everyone was that drove me crazy). Is this what we've become; mindless drones too dumb to realize that the easier, as well as healthier, way to socialize was just to move our mouths instead of our fingers?

You know people do this on dates too. That's really pathetic.

Think about it: two people set aside time specifically to spend time with the other, and instead of using that precious time to bond with your friend/significant other/family member, you're on your phone checking your Facebook to see how many people liked your selfie. Like, fuck that, bitch! I don't know about you, but I would use every single millisecond of that date to make sure that whatever is going on in the other persons life is knowledge I know. I'm thinking to myself "Oh my goodness I haven't seen this person in years! I wonder what they've been up to?" Whoever is reading this right now and texts on dates, please just comment on this part because I legitimately want to know what the fuck is going on in your mind at a time like that.

Okay, I'll cut you some slack if you're on this really bad date with a stranger you just met, but I can't figure out any other reasons would put a person in that situation.