TMI

Just how important is your call, anyway?
I have a pet peeve about people talking on their phones in all sorts of places. This has been building for a while but yesterday just set me off.

Driving - If you are driving, get a blue tooth or headset and keep your damn hands on the wheel. I don't care if you are talking to your long lost sister you haven't seen in 30 years or you are calling little Johnny to see how the soccer game is going. Nothing. Let me repeat that, NOTHING is important enough to risk your life and mine. You may be the world's most best stunt driver, but holding a phone to your face for 10 miles as you careen down the beltway at 75 MPH is not my idea of safe driving. And texting while driving is grounds for getting shot (or, at a minimum, flipped off). I say admit that I am guilty of this transgression in the past but I have repented and learned the error of my ways. I have blue tooth set and will use it occasionally while driving but prefer not to take calls while I am driving. Texas already has a law on the books that makes it illegal to use a cell phone while in a school zone (blue tooth is ok). My home town just enacted a new ordinance that will ban texting/e-mailing while driving anywhere inside the city limits. Even if you are parked at a light, it is verboten.

Public places - restaurants, bars, airports, an elevator, the doctor's office, on a plane, in the store. I know you have to keep in touch, but keep in mind that not everyone in the immediate vicinity wants to share in your conversation. I've said it before: I'm a feeling person, but not a caring person. I really don't care to hear where you are going for dinner or how your last job sucked. Private conversations should be just that, private. If you want to have some fun with these people, strike up your own conversation loudly right next to them. More than once I have taken a call to my friend about some fictitious ailment (Yeah, the doc said I should stay away from Mexican food for a couple of weeks. Otherwise it gives me the runs and some really bad gas.) Of course, to do this requires some amount of humility but I am too old to get embarrassed easily.

Rest rooms - do I really have to say this? Is this really something we should have a rule about? When you are on the phone and going to the bathroom at the SAME TIME, it is time to get a new hobby/life. I stepped into the bathroom this afternoon to "take care of business" and there was one accountant standing next to me TALKING ON A PHONE. Multi-tasking, my ass. There has to be some sort of rule about keeping focused on the job at hand. Does the person on the other end realize where this conversation is going (or coming from)? Sadly, this is NOT the first time I have encountered this situation. Whenever I run into this kind of scenario, my a#%@*@ persona kicks in and I tend to make way more noise than necessary. A few will get the hint. Others are just plain clueless.