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Dear Urban Diplomat: Should I have told off a streetcar FaceTimer?

By Urban Diplomat
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I was taking the King streetcar home during rush hour the other day, and it was a cramped, sweaty nightmare. About 10 minutes into the ride, a young woman pulled out her phone and accepted a FaceTime call. She proceeded to have a 20-minute conversation, narrating, in R-rated detail, a recent one-night stand. Without headphones. And there were kids on board! A couple of people gave her the angry side eye, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak up. Should I have said something?

—Hot and Bothered, Mimico

Anyone with an ounce of self-awareness knows that talking on the phone is a cardinal sin of commuting, up there with leaving your bag on a seat or clipping your fingernails. FaceTiming, in which not one but both sides of the conversation are audible, tops my list of transit mis­demeanours. There’s nothing prudish about asking a stranger two inches away from you to refrain from giving a sexual play-by-play. You’d be justified in hushing them whatever the subject matter. But I’d be surprised if your shaming swayed someone so brazen. Clippers gonna clip, and gabbers gonna gab.

Send your questions to the Urban Diplomat at urbandiplomat@torontolife.com

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