A middle-aged man in a fast-food restaurant asked if he could borrow my phone. We were both waiting for our food to cook.
“Excuse me. May I borrow your cell phone? I left mine home. I’ll pay for the call.”
“Um, sure. You don’t have to pay for the call.”
“Thanks. Can you dial the number for me? I don’t have my glasses.”
“Sure.” (thinking to myself, you don’t even own a cell phone and you don’t know how to dial it)
He looked old-ish. His was adequately polite and dressed casually (not “nice” but far from being a bum). He didn’t look obviously diseased or sick. So I handed him my cell phone. He made a short call to meet up with someone. He closed the phone, handed it back to me, thanked me again, got his “to go” food, and left.
End of story.
THEN…
I thought about holding the phone up to my face after some stranger talked on it. I actually wrapped the phone in napkins (as if it had fallen into the toilet) so I didn’t have to touch it. Later, I sprayed it with a bleach solution to sterilize it. I really drenched it with bleach and wiped it with a bleach-soaked paper towel. Then it felt clean.
I will not loan my phone to a stranger again.
Am I paranoid? I’ve used public phones before. But this was MY phone. And that guy… who knows? Did he wash his hands after going to the bathroom? Does he have some contagious disease?
Also, could I have gotten scammed? The number was local, but if he had dialed the number himself, he could have called any number and I wouldn’t find out until later.
Would YOU loan your cell phone to a stranger? My phone was in my pocket and not obvious that I had one. I could have told a white lie and said I didn’t have one. What would you do?
I hardly ever carry my phone on me so i usually use a pay-phone but they are often broken so i have asked complete strangers if i could use their phones a few times. If they admit they have one they lend it to me. I always offer to pay for the call but they have always decline the offer.
If someone asked if they could borrow my phone i would gladly let them use it after they assure me it would be a short call because it is outrageously expensive.
Contagious like bird flu? Oh yeah, thats an airborne virus as far as I know. If this guy breathed in your general direction you could be infected! You might die in just a few months!
As far as I know, AIDS is sexually transmitted not by phone. If you have ever used a public space you would know your more likely to catch something off a door handle or a handshake, although a phone can be a good transmitter. Statistics of being infected is low even in high density situations. Your probably more likely to get sick from the food you’re being served, of the utensils you use to eat it.
Think about this one: You touch something with your hand, you touch your face… Then you are at risk.
So, my advice is to avoid touching anything and stay inside! Agoraphobia is the only way to stay safe from the world!
I liked your idea of dialing the phone for the person, so you keep them from dialing some outrageous long distance or something. I think my calls are free on evenings and weekends so local or U.S. long distance wouldn’t be a problem.
If you have cooties like Howie Mandell, you should start by asking yourslef if you opened the door of the restaurant with your bare hand, or were you wearing gloves? Germs are everywhere, especially when lots of people are around.
Okay, a smelly old man who hasn’t bathed in two days presses your phone to the oily skin of his ear (which visibly smears onto your phone) and puffs his foul, cigarette-smelling breath onto your phone. You like this? Not me. (it wasn’t this bad)
Yes, germs are everywhere. I’m saying the phone didn’t feel clean. Yes, I opened the germ transmission vector [door handle] of the restaurant with my bare hands. But did I touch the door handle on the way out of the restroom? No. That’s one vector I avoid.
What if he coughed into the phone? Someone at the office where I work a few years ago was diagnosed with tuberculosis. I don’t want that on my phone. It’s not likely to happen. But the point is that you don’t know. And it’s easily preventable.
Would you swap shirts with that old man? Would you kiss him? Take a bite of his sandwich? How “intimate” would you get? All these things would probably be safe. But would you do it? I simply didn’t like the idea of my phone being plastered to his face. It wasn’t just a germ issue. The phone didn’t feel clean. I didn’t like where it had been.
I wouldn’t loan someone my phone without a reasonable explanation of why they needed it, and would have to be something atleast vaguely emergencyesque i.e. i’ve missed the last bus, I need my parents to come pick me up.
How paranoid are you?
Have you never used a phone after a sick person? I don’t mean deathly sick, I mean normal sick. Most viral infections are passed through common touch.
It’s not like he wiped his crack with it or mopped at his weeping willy wound with the mic side.
Anyway, yes I would loan my mobile if I had one.
3 conditions: I dial the number. Premium rate number risks and whatnot.
There’s got to be nowhere to run.
They’ve at least got to offer some money for the call.
The reason? I’ve scrounged a lot of mobile calls myself. Without the kindness of strangers I’d have been stuffed on many occasions.
Now I’m wondering if any of them to a scouring pad to their phone after I used it.
Normally where I live I just day “Sorry my minutes are to low”…or just say that I do not have a pone at all… I do on occasion let people barrow it I really don’t mind all that much (I am unlimited minutes even long distance) before it was like Christmas and we were in a store and some woman asked to barrow it so I let her turns out it was to see what her kid wanted…I would say like 49 out of 50 times I make an excuse so I don’t have to let them barrow it…
My story:
walking around a shopping center with friend and this guy comes up to us and asked if either of us would lend him a phone. Befor friend could answer I said neither of us had a phone but I would give him money for a pay phone. He then said never mind and walked off. Minuets later I heard somebody shout: “HEY that guys nicked my phone!”. I wonder If it was they guy who I spoke to earler?
