Prep the patient, I'm on my way!

"Peoples, when did it become appropriate to hold a loud, lengthy, non-sensical, (cell) phone conversation while dining in a restaurant? And if I can hear you, from 5 yards away, over the restaurant's Musiq, you're speaking waaaayyy too loudly! Grrrr!!"

That was a recent posting I made to my Facebook page.

Cell phone users must be the most self unaware people on the planet! We will talk anywhere -- at the doctor's office, in a restaurant, in the ER, on the sidewalk -- anywhere! What happened to observing basic social graces?

On a recent trip, a man walking through the terminal at LAX was on the phone and cursing (WTF!), loudly. When I glared at him and said, "We can hear you!", he did have the decency to look embarassed.

Everyone I know has a cell phone and we've all been in situations when we had to take the call. If you have children you need to be accessible. So, I get there are times when turning the phone to off/vibrate are not an option.

When LCpl. Jackson was deployed, I took my cell phone EVERYWHERE and kept the ringer on, so I wouldn't miss any of his calls. When he did call, I would stop what I was doing and take the call. If I was driving, I pulled over; if I was in a meeting with customers or colleagues, I excused myself.

Having said that, those are exceptions, not the norm. For the vast majority of us, we're just behaving badly! If you're seated in a restaurant having dinner, you don't need to suck the rest of us into your conversation! Get up from the table! Leave the dining room! The only plausible reason for you to take the call at the table is because you left the hospital to eat and they're calling to tell you the helicopter with the organ is en route. In which case you should say, "Prep the patient, I'm on my way!"

Before you purchase a cell phone, they should make you sign a waiver stating you are aware of basic social graces and agree to observe a few rules, like:

• I will not turn my ringer to maximum volume and set Jamie Foxx's "Blame it (on the Alcohol)" as my ringtone for incoming calls.
• I will not engage in private phone conversations in public.
• I will not talk on my cell while seated at the table, eating in a restaurant or at your house.
• I will not talk on my phone during a business transaction and ask the person rendering the service to "hold on" -- like asking the cashier to hold on as you talk on the phone while trying to pay for your groceries.
• I am aware I don't have to yell and will use my "inside" voice* .
• I know I look stupid with the Bluetooth headset in my ear when I'm not actually on the phone or in the car.

*If you don't know what an "inside voice" is, consult any 4 year old.