Yes, you are very important. There are things that cannot be done in this world unless whatever business you are conducting on the phone, loudly, at around 10pm.
As more people make use of their rear yards I’m becoming a bit more aware of their lives. Some more than others. There are a few folks who have decks and their voices sometimes bounce off the walls and wanders into the alley. When I’m in the backyard I can hear (and then smell) one neighbor fiddling around with his/her grill, screen doors opening and closing, light conversation with their guests, and cell phone guy. Okay, with cell phone guy sometimes I don’t even have to be in the backyard. Sometimes I hear him when I’m in my kitchen. I’m in my kitchen, with the windows closed, and I can still hear this guy.
Beyond the profanity and incoherent screaming, I think he is conducting business on the phone as I hear the word ‘contracts’ pop up on a regular basis. I pity the person on the receiving end of the call, if not for the abusive language, tone and volume, but the public nature of half the conversation. The backyard is not 100% private. Not when all of our homes are so small and close to each other. So what can be seen, heard and smelled in the backyard from someone else’s backyard is not exactly private. While I’m on this backyard kick…. kids, your homemade hookah, very ingenious, but trying to smoke it out the top of your back window is very likely to attract attention from anyone walking through the alley, looking out their window or in their back yard, ’cause it just looks weird. Instead, hang out with the kids who smoke on their back deck.
Of course in a world, a city, where people chatter on about the intimate details of their lives on cell phones while on the Metro, in the supermarket, and sadly in the public restroom, it should not surprise me that a loud cellular fight is brought to the semi enclosed back yard.