Recent travels have reinforced a problem with communication systems.

At the airport as you are at the gate waiting to board, you often hear a voice that sounds like flies buzzing around Viggo (Ghostbusters, couldn’t resist), and people saying “What?”.

Sometimes the sound device is on and you still can’t hear them or understand them. (I’m not talking about bad hearing, I am falling apart but I can hear a slur from 100 yards away).

On the plane you often hear what sounds like “This is the Captain” and it is followed by words no one can hear, feint and unintelligible. I don’t miss hearing “we will have light chop (that means turbulence that can lift you out of your seat), but us nervous flyers do like to hear most updates.

When we got off the plane and got on a cruise, you begin getting messages from the entertainment director and the captain. The problem is you can’t hear them from various parts of the cabin or veranda or hall.

“Just an update, we are going to encounter bsssssssssssssssssssss”.

Sometimes you can’t hear anything they are saying.

I kept hoping one of the phrases I couldn’t hear was “Abandon Ship”.

You would think at this stage of civilization we would be able to clearly here messages over electronic devices.

Silly me.