Them and us

It seems to me that we are rapidly becoming two camps: those who love cell phones and those, like me, who hate them.
Lately I've taken to counting the number of cars I see on the road being piloted by people yapping away on their phones. This, I realize, is a half-hearted endeavor because so many of the cell phone addicted are now using "hands free" phones. My big question is: What the hell is so damned important that it couldn't wait until you got where you're going???!!!! My hunch is that the people who love their phones have NOTHING important to relay via their wireless appendage and are merely so bored they cannot stand to be alone with themselves. Pathetic!
I have a friend, actually a good friend, who never fails to call me late in the day while driving home from work. She is a type A who is very much into multi-tasking and, I'm sure, feels like just driving home without doing something else is a complete waste of time. I hate taking her calls. I always feel like an afterthought. You know: "Well, here I am trapped in my car with nothing else in the world to do.......good time to get that pesky phone call to Ol' Ken out of the way." I am constantly tempted to give her driving directions like: "Look out for that Fiat!" "Hey, didn't you cut that guy off??"
I used to, in fact still do, look at my car as an isolation booth on wheels. You know, a place to hide out from the rest of the world, a place where nobody can reach me. When I was forced to take calls during my radio show I always looked at it as a massive imposition. If you were ever a caller to my show, I'm sorry but I was faking any morsel of interest in your call. Let's face it.....I got into radio so that I could talk and you could listen; not the other way around.
My brother, Steve, who is in the newspaper business, (another dying industry), tells me that on many days he takes a shortcut to his job through a local state college campus. He is amazed to observe the number of students shuttling between classes with cell phones pressed to their ears. His lament: "Is everyone afraid to be alone with their thoughts??!!" I have made the same observation at airports and other public venues. Whatever happened to just thinking or reading a book?
Well, I feel better.
Oops, there goes that familiar vibration. Yes, it's my cell. I have "pants waiting" because it feels so good when I have one incoming.
Answer it? Never do.