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Tulsa World, Okla., Jay Cronley Column: Airplanes Need a No- Chattering Section

Posted on: Sunday, 16 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Jay Cronley, Tulsa World, Okla.

Apr. 16--When last I flew, people sat on both sides of me at the gate waiting area, wheeling, dealing, reeling and sealing.

Of all the types of public cell phone action, flying cell phone users are the least respectful of a neighbor's space and privacy. I know this because I am one of only a few people ever to appear at an airport gate area without a cell phone.

Were it not for me, a woman sitting across the aisle with a bandage on one ear and a couple of other people, there would have been no need for anybody to wonder if they were making their neighbors uncomfortable -- because their neighbors would have been on a cell phone of their own, lining up some business.

Anymore, it's like the pilot is flying an office building.

The way business works for people who travel a lot on the job is, if you don't call a prospective customer, somebody else will.

So everybody calls everybody else.

And stays on the line.

Hello, Bangkok: The man to my left was on a hand-held cell phone.

The woman to my right was on a headset cell phone, a computer open on her lap.

There's something about a headset cell phone hook-up that says: I'm here to irritate you.

Getting on my nerves should not be effortless.

People on headset cell phones can look you right in the eye from a distance of three feet and smile at the person they're speaking to in Bangkok.

I was trying to read a magazine and started to ask the person who was almost shouting into the headset cell phone to please hold it to the level of the jet engine warming up.

The business being attempted in the next seat seemed to involve a considerable amount of money, as the number, hundred thousand, was repeated casually.

That business deal seemed to be more important than my reading an article about movie star gossip.

Here's what we need: the equivalent of smoke holes for people hooked on their cell phones.

Just reserve a room for cell phone junkies and let them all in there to bounce off the walls and negotiate, add, subtract, schedule, re-schedule, reserve and confirm.

Pardon me?: Somebody smiled and said something, though I couldn't tell what.

Then he pointed to his ears, then mine.

I took off my ear phones.

"What are you listening to?" he asked.

"Nothing," I replied.

I got the expensive ear phones on a two-week trial basis.

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Jay Cronley 581-8362 jay.cronley@tulsaworld.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Tulsa World, Okla.

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Source: Tulsa World

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