Cellphone Babble The New Pollution

The woman is jabbering into her cellphone, distracted, moving fast and heading straight towards me. I'm at a stand still, blocked in traffic and cannot avoid the collision, the left front bumper of her shopping cart hits my cart broadside and pins it against the dairy case in the supermarket. For a millionth of a second her eyes acknowledge my presence then without the slightest interruption in cellphone blabber the woman backs away, turns and continues down the isle.

I sit down at a picnic table in the park to relax. Fifty feet behind me a woman with her five-year old son in tow roams in big circles her cellphone pressed into her face. Her passion drives every word she says inside my head as she dials one poor soul after another and unloads the latest. Relief comes forty-five minutes later when she grabs her son by the hand and drags him to the car saying: "Come-on I've got to recharge the battery."

Over one hundred job applicants are reduced to three finalists who must make a fifteen-minute presentation to the twenty members of the selection committee. The second candidate is in the middle of his presentation when his cellphone rings. He takes the call and talks for almost five minutes, with a friend, about where to meet for lunch then he resumes his presentation. He does not get the job.

At Taco Bell the man behind the cash register is verifying my order. Before he is done, he answers his cellphone and chitchats for three minutes and thirty-eight seconds (I timed him.) with his wife. There are customers waiting in line behind me and when my order is filled it is two items short.

Will the clatter of dishes in restaurants soon be lost in cellphone chatter? Will the cheers at little league ball games be drowned out by the din of cellphone babble? How many hours will each of us lose every day waiting for an intrusive cellphone conversation to end? How many tiresome one ended conversations will we be forced to endure because of proximity? Is this the new noise pollution of the Twenty-first Century?

A cellphone book of etiquette will appear on the best seller list. In the mean time, here are three rules to follow that will also save you the price of the book.
First, the benefits of a new technology do not annul common sense or good manners. Callers to cellphones can wait their turn and should not be allowed to "butt in". Second, private conversations should remain private and not be forced on hapless bystanders. Third, the cellphone on-off switch should be in the off position most of the time.
Emerson said: "There is nothing as profound as common sense."

From my tub to your tub.