It goes kinda like this...

You're riding home on the bus, one of those articulated behemoths loaded to the gills during the rush hour. Perhaps you're staring at the rather nerdy fella drooling asleep in his seat across from you, or you're doing a crossword or Sudoku puzzle, and minding your own business... and then it begins... a buzz that reverberates in your head because it's not just coming from one location but is in fact coming from all around you... the student sitting a few seats down the aisle, the lady standing close to the door because god forbid men ever give up their seats these days to a lady, even the elderly statesman reading his Globe and Mail... and at first you can't make sense of it, this buzz-thumping noise that grates your nerves because you've had a rotten day and you just want to relax a bit before getting home to the chaos -- wonderful that it might be -- that is twin daughters who want to play three versions of tag before bedtime. So you try and shut it out, but then you realize that the buzz actually contains words and sounds that make some kind of obtuse sense, but not enough that you can't just listen, you actually have to work to understand it and yet you still can't figure it out because the words and sounds are all inter-mixed with each other since they come from three or four different sources around you...and you realize that this deluge of fuzzy noise and belching bass coming from ipods and digital media players hidden in coat pockets, packages, boxes and bags is in fact worse than if you could actually hear the music being played or the words being spoken whether you hated it or not -- kinda like when someone is talking on a cell phone and having an argument that they didn't want to have right then on the bus but can't somehow end the call -- but you can't and the buzz just gets more annoying and grating... and you know they know that you can hear it... or you think they know, but then again do they really care because at least they have something to listen to and not just this ever-present buzz... man, I need to get me one of those things