I'm a big fan of dental picks. Somehow they are much more user-friendly than plain ol' floss, probably cause it can be wielded with one hand. I have a few in the car and used to deploy them while stuck in traffic on the way to work. I figured it wouldn't look quite as bad to my fellow commuters as, say, picking my nose.
Dealing with noisy people technique I read about: Stand there obviously listening in, and when they notice you, yap about how you wanna know what happened next. If they say it's a private conversation, you can say "Not when you're talking that loudly, it's not private at all. Nope." Warning: May work better with cell phone users on the bus than on your office mates, who you will probably have to put up with afterwards.
Dear Kara: I have to go off for a rock and roll pee now.
