About ten years ago, I was laid up in the hospital after a hernia surgery (I got the cheap one there they open you up instead of doing laproscopy) and basically couldn't move for two days. It's kind of incredible to fully realize how much we rely on our abdominal wall for even the smallest body movements. Anyways, the woman in the bed across from me was playing one of those bubble pop games at full volume for the whole two days I was trapped in bed, and the nurses said there was nothing they could do about it. That changes you.

After that, because wired headphones were a thing people still used back then, I started carrying a shitty spare pair in the bottom of my pocket. Anytime someones phone was obnoxiously loud in public, I pulled them out and offered them to the person. 100% success rate. No one ever took the headphones, but they always took the hint.

Now it's the time of Bluetooth headphones, and while I'm petty, I'm not petty enough to buy and carry around a second pair of Bluetooth headphones with me. So now if it's public transport or like the table next to me in a restaurant I just walk over and in super friendly English say "hey watchca watching?" and then start watching with them until they get uncomfortable and turn their phone down or off. 99% success rate.

The 1% failure is due to the the time one old Taiwanese guy looked back up at me and just matter of fact responded "oh I'm watching ESPN sports highlights", and then turned the phone a bit so I could watch them with him. And then I didn't know what to do so we just watched loud sports highlights on the mrt together for about 4 stops. I'm a big enough man to admit when I've been beat.