Okay, a completely hypothetical situation.

You are at a crowded restaurant with a large group of people, say twelve, and one person has been assigned to place the family style order for the table. In normal circumstances you would think the communication between two people at a distance of three feet apart would be a simple matter. Did I mention in this purely hypothetical situation that one side of the table is filled with five college freshman? I guess I also forgot to mention that this hypothetical restaurant is a popular place on a Saturday night, which is strange because you would think an Americanized Italian joint to be empty on a Saturday evening. This unexpected popularity brings a new dynamic to the situation in that the table in question is surrounded by other tables filled with large groups of people who are all holding conversations so important to the fate of humanity that they feel the need to make sure they speak load enough for Mars to hear. For those of you who are a bit slow on the uptake, in sum the area around our hypothetical dinner – waiter order interaction is a tad bit on the noisy side.