Forgetting to keep your car on the road

This is going to be a bit of a rant.

While driving, have you ever simply forgotten to keep your car on the road? I’m guessing you haven’t, because you’re still alive enough to read this. Some things are just too obvious to miss.

Which leads me to the rant part: In the last several days I’ve been to the theatre twice. Both times somebody’s cell phone went off in the middle of the performance.

In one case, in the performance I wrote about the other day, we were seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in “Waiting for Godot”. Seats were very expensive in a sold out run of a once in a lifetime Broadway experience.

So you would think that people would be conscious of how important it was to turn off their ringer. Yet somebody’s phone started ringing in the middle of the play, loudly and for a very long time.

In the second case, the management made a point of telling us to turn off our cell phones. Before the curtain rose, we heard a lovely female voice with a posh British accent explaining to us how very very important it was that we switch off our electronic devices. The lady was charming yet extremely firm.

And yet, again, some damned fool’s cellphone went off in the middle of the second act.

I have been trying to figure out how this happens. After all, as an audience member in a live theatre performance you are responsible for performing exactly one action to avoid ruining the experience for everyone else: Turn off your phone (or at least your ringer). And that’s it, that’s the whole enchilada, the beginning and the end of what is expected of you.

So how could anybody miss something so fundamental? It’s kind of like driving an automobile and forgetting to keep your car on the road.