Growing up, I was taught never to interupt conversations, sleep, study, prayer, rest, or any other private or confidential passtime. The exception it seems, and increasingly so nowadays, is the telephone. The simple access to a phone is a blanket license to interupt the lives and goings-on of others. I don't believe this is proper. I try never to call too early or late in the day, at mealtime or if I think there's a possibility of interupting one's private life beyond reasonable allowances. This restricts my phone use; that and my general dislike for the contraption. If everyone did the same, there might be more internet conversations, more letters written, more neighbourly visits, less bullshit, and more mannerly consideration in the world.

My family owns a cell phone however, though nobody knows where in the house it is at the moment, for travel emergencies.

Several times in the past couple of years I've heard the things ring, then been annoyed by the conversation during folk festivals, the one place where such modern workaday crap should be cast off, IMHO.

Along with seadoos, a good reason to own an axe.

Mooh.