For the second time within seven days I am on my way to Stockholm. Taking the train makes this a simple and comfortable three hour journey with access to coffee and wifi as opposed to a one hour flight filled with trips to airports, queuing and cramped conditions. Basically either way you arrive at your destination almost at the same time – only difference is on the train I can work.
An old addition to the train is the implementation of mobile free compartments. In these compartments the travellers must keep their mobile phones turned off. Since I am not bothered by people speaking loudly about their personal or business affairs I tend not to choose mobile free compartments.
On my last trip I was speaking with a friend of mine on the phone. When I hung up a person in the seat furtherst from me across the aisle rather haughtily pointed out that this was a mobile free compartment. I was very polite but since I was sure it was not I informed him of where the compartment was. He apologised.
Now to the part that is interesting. Not long after this event, his own mobile rings and he answers it and has a conversation!
This makes me very curious as to his desire to inform me (wrongly) of the rules concerning mobile telephones and trains. I have a few alternatives:
A) He is a rule-driven Kantian obsessivly concerned about rules. Yet he is also an active civil disobedient and wants to make a political statement about mobile phone rules.
B) He really thought that the compartment was mobile-free and when he realised he was wrong he overcame his annoyances about people talking loudly in phones and gratefully answered his own phone.
C) He was conducting a social experiment dealing with the enforcement of rules.
D) He is a prat who does not feel that rules apply to him but are only there to stop others from annoying him.
Considering the fact that most other travellers in class I choose wear suits and I do not – I am inclined to choose D.