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Don't get me started about noise. We live in an exceptionally noisy world. Many people don't even know what real silence or quiet is. Many don't want to know.

As an ex-musician, I'm surprised that I'm starting to hate music. It's everywhere. You can't get away from it. I ask in some "coffee bars" that they turn down or off the music. Sometimes they do it, but never low enough. I thought some places are for quiet, thinking and meditation.

If you think cell phones are problem on trains, you should ride a train in England, the problem there is worse. So much for British manners.

Then there are the train crossing horns near where I live. They are SO LOUD even at 4 AM. I don't know how anyone gets any sleep.

Then there are insane barking dogs with deaf owners.

Like I said, don't get me started. What's wrong with a little peace and quiet?

re: Don't get me started about noise. We live in an exceptionally noisy world. Many people don't even know what real silence or quiet is. Many don't want to know. )))

I hear you--but that's why I wonder why cell phones seem to annoy so much. They're just one more noise in a noisy place.

My own pet noise peeve was when I had the privilege of living for a short while in Hawaii, and spent every moment I could at the beach to listen to the ocean. Inevitably someone would show up with a boombox--

And I moved out to the country, and enjoy spending time in my garden next to a rocky stream. How I detest the stupid hobby pilots who buzz around pointlessly on every fine, bright day, right over my head--back and forth--

But a cellphone on a plane, on the street, even in a restaurant filled with talking people? No biggie.

I hear ya. Don't get me started either. They play disco music at my corporate gym. Disco? Thankfully, when the hanging TVs are blasting and the treadmill motors are humming they all cancel each other out. But in the weight room, where I go, it's just your grunts and the distracting, annoying disco. Like you, I suspect, I listen to music, can't just hear it! (A Seinfeld episode comes to mind with an emergency room doctor getting distracted by Witchy Woman coming out of a speaker while his patient is dying.)

Ever notice that on American commercial television you won't hear a second of silence? That's intentional and obviously doesn't have to be that way. My theory is that people nowadays are afraid of silence, afraid of being left with their own thoughts. Might get depressed. Need a distraction. Dang it, you did get me started!