A man, probably an American living in Amsterdam, was talking loudly on the phone on the train from Düsseldorf to Amsterdam.
I tried to mitigate the noise by reading a good book. That didn’t work, so then I tried to think of kinky sex, which didn’t work either. Shortly before we crossed the border I tried to remember Jewish prayers.
Nothing worked.
I opened my laptop and I started a transcription of the man’s monologue.
I wrote down: “Audit. Auto-objective.
Better now than tomorrow.
Issue log.
They fix it while we are asleep.
Issue log.
We need a test.”

Finally, the noise stopped.