Ringing phones call out for Miss Manners
by Mary Barrera, reporter

    Have you ever just sat back and watched people dig for their cell phones immediately after class?

    They’re sitting and passing time between classes, visiting with groups of friends or walking to the parking lot. Whatever they are doing, it seems imperative that they tell someone about it because, goodness knows, they have been deprived of communication. They did, after all, just depart from an institution of higher learning.
Then I wonder what these speech-starved individuals’ class participation is like. Are they the first to answer a question? Perhaps, if the instructors and students were on a conference call, the long silence after a question wouldn’t exist.

    When cell phones were first made available to the general public, having one was a big secret. No one talked on cell phones because they were too expensive; no one gave out a cell phone number, and if you did see people chatting on their phones, then they must have been rich.

    Phones are much more popular now, but there is still that problem with cell phone etiquette. Turning your phone off during class, at the movies and at church is just good manners. Of course, everyone forgets once in a while, and that is perfectly acceptable. What gets me is the family in the front row of the movie theater who lets the phone ring and ring and ring, answers it and proceeds to hold a conversation. Hello, I didn’t just pay full price for a ticket to be invited into your personal life.

    What is with people who use their phones in weird places? Do they really need their phone in a restaurant? Isn’t the whole idea not to talk while you’re eating, or did we throw that rule right out the window?

    I saw someone talking on a cell phone while standing in front of a pay phone. I started calculating in my head if it would have been cheaper just to stick 35 cents in the pay phone and be done with it. Did that person even see the pay phone, or have those phones become invisible?

    My phone rang once while I was shopping. It was my husband, who was at the other end of the store wanting to know where I was. So, instead of giving street directions like most people do when they give directions, I gave directions to the shoe department. The situation was surreal.

    Have you heard the different types of rings? Today, I heard a symphony, a Christmas carol and the Lone Ranger theme (or William Tell Overture). Is it rude to sing along? Do they even make cell phones that ring any more?

    After class one day, just for fun, look around and see how many people are on their cell phones. Maybe the next person you see with a phone is talking to the last person you saw with a phone. It could happen.