CELL PHONES

Rudeness prevails.

It is pervasive: talk radio, television commentary, so-called TV news hosts interrupting guests, partisan politics....etc

Rudeness has become the new way of communicating, and there is no bigger culprit than the cell phone.

While the cell phone may be one of the most innovative and publicly useful inventions of the 20th century, it has accelerated the art of rudeness and lack of consideration to those around us.

Example 1: While entering a nearly full elevator in a Philadelphia hotel this summer, I heard this boisterous, booming voice following me inside. It belonged to a big man talking into a cell phone. As the elevator descended to the lobby, the voice kept up its booming conversation. Standing in front of him, I placed my fingers in my ears thinking he would get the hint that he was being an inconsiderate, rude and obnoxious jerk.

His daughter nudged him and said, "daddy, your talking too loud."

To which he ignored her.

He also ignored the gesture of my fingers in my ears. If I had any decency I should have wrestled the phone from his ear, slammed it to the floor and stomped on it until it was smashed into thousands of tiny unrecognizable pieces.

At the lobby level, he was first out the door, still rudely boisterous, ambling through the lobby at full voice, engaged in a totally useless conversation.

Example 2: I'm on the subway train from the Philadelphia airport traveling back into town to the hotel after dropping off a rental car. There's a lady seated by herself talking loudly for all to hear on her cell phone. She is in a heated argument extolling in vivid detail how she was rudely treated by a mutual female friend over some trivial incident. It was one of those "she said, I said," conversations. It was a 20-minute train ride. She never came up for air.

We riders got the full gist of her encounter with rudeness perpetuated upon herself. Yet she was totally unaware of her own rudeness while on a public conveyance, even as the train hit full speed.

If I had any decency, I should have grabbed the phone from her ear, and tossed it under the train, to be flattened like a penny on the rail.

Example 3: We are in a restaurant. In a far corner, two ladies are having lunch. One lady is talking into a cell phone carrying on an animated and loud conversation. Surrounding diners couldn't help but hearing. Her table companion was being ignored. She was not only being rude to others in the restaurant, but also to her lunch companion.

If I had any decency, I should have grabbed the phone from her ear, and dunked it in the iced tea.

Yes, rudeness is everywhere, and as mentioned above, cell phones take a big part of the blame. The rudeness makes us rude too, gathering momentum from what is going on around us, and we do nothing.

Oblivious to those around us, we carry on totally meaningless conversations while walking the aisles of the grocery store, at checkout counters, driving our cars, inconsiderately ignoring everything around us. Yes, we know it is dangerous to drive while talking on a cell phone. Yet we do it anyway.

It's not the driving, but it's the total absorption in the conversation, oblivious to our surroundings, ignoring everything.

We have two cell phones in our house. Mine gets used when we are out of town, on the road, and we separate for a few hours at a Mall or some event. We use our cell phones to reconnect. Time of conversation -- 20 seconds at the most. If we need to have long conversations with others, we use our house phone.

Cell phones are handy in emergencies, on the highway if you have car trouble, seeking directions in a strange city to someones house, checking on vacation or hotel and restaurant reservations. They are what they should be -- tracking devices, quickly locating your children or a spouse or a relative, immediate and quick connections to the world.

Want to engage in long conversations of useless babble? Use the house phone in your bedroom .That way, you won't disturb anyone but yourself.

Don't forget to close the door.