In L.A. These Days, the Phone Never Ends

It had been a long, taxing day and it felt good to be home, good to settle on one end of the sofa, kick off the shoes and put the feet up. Reflexively, my eyes searched for the remote but suddenly I was struck by the uncommon sense of calm and quiet. I reached for the newspaper and sighed with the pleasant sensation of stress slipping off my shoulders.

The woman who may someday be my wife settled herself at the opposite end of the sofa. We exchanged smiles of fond contentment.

Then she reached for the portable phone and poked some numbers.

“Just checking my messages,” she lied.

Soon, you see, she was poking a few more numbers, returning a friend’s call.

I kept reading my newspaper, confident I could ignore the half a conversation at my feet. What’s a little background noise to a child of the TV age? I am a multimedia man, comfortable reading magazines and newspapers with the TV on, catching snippets of news or sports, comedy or drama.

For all its character flaws, the TV can be an amiable companion. It is easily ignored, except when it shouts during commercials. The mute button comes in handy.

Now I found myself wishing I could mute the small woman with the big voice, gabbing and laughing and having a grand old time.

I sat stewing, feeling the stress return.

*

I thought about this the next morning, when the radio reported that the cost of pay phones was going up, from 25 cents for local calls to 35 cents, thanks to the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Oh, great.

The extra dime doesn’t bother me so much as the thought that it would encourage even more people to use cellular phones, especially since cell-phone service seems to be getting less expensive. All of this, I fear, will further accelerate the spread of rude, boorish and sometimes even dangerous behavior associated with mobile phones.

You know who you are. You’re not just a walking, talking cliche, you’re a driving, talking cliche--even a dining, talking cliche. You dial up friends while you’re on the freeway and steer with your knees. You answer calls at restaurant tables and discuss bladder surgery. You allow your phones to interrupt sermons, soliloquies, backswings.

Maybe you’ve learned your lesson. Maybe the censorious looks have taught you that it’s impolite to engage in half a conversation in the presence of others. Maybe you say excuse me before taking out the cell phone at a ballgame.

But for those of you who learn cellular etiquette, there’s always a generation of new users who are too tickled by the novelty of it all. And even for those who should know better, the temptation of dialing and driving seems too hard to resist.

The phenomenon, long familiar in L.A., recently prompted Seattle writer Douglas Gantenbein to suggest there is “an electronic equivalent of ‘road rage’--call it ‘cellular simmer.’ ” The combination of road rage and cellular simmer can’t be a good thing.

Insurance companies are thinking about cellular simmer, too. Already, a Quebec insurance brokerage called Groupe Commerce Inc. tacks an extra $50 per year on premiums for cars equipped with phones. Most cell phones, of course, are more mobile than that.

Still, insurers certainly took note last February when the New England Journal of Medicine published a study by two University of Toronto researchers showing that using a cell phone while driving quadruples the risk of a crash.

The cellular industry responded by pointing out that the cell phone can be a valuable safety device--and, certainly, it sometimes is. The cell phone can get you out of trouble it’s gotten you into.

It’s hard not to admire the marketing of cell phones. First they shot down fears that the gadgets cause brain cancer. Now they air deliberately disgusting TV commercials that show pay-phone users sneezing into mouthpieces.

It leaves me wondering whether any medical researchers have studied pay-phone contagion. If we have to pay an extra dime, couldn’t we expect the phone companies to provide a sanitary tissue?

Or maybe you don’t care whether people use toilet seat covers.

*

Bad phone manners in public are one thing. A breach of phone etiquette at home struck me even worse.

As she got louder and louder, my looks must have gotten darker and darker. Finally I testily suggested she take her conversation to another room. She did so. It helped, but I could still hear every word she said.

Later she explained she’d been talking to an old friend from high school. She mentioned that she had two other messages--one from a girlfriend, one from an “interesting” man she had met in Europe last spring, “sort of a world traveler.” He was in L.A. for a few days and was suggesting they meet.

Within a half hour, we had switched rooms. I was reading in bed and she was in the living room. Funny, but now all I could hear were whispers.

She later told me she was talking to her girlfriend. And I believe her. Absolutely.

But just what they were talking about, I’m not sure I want to know.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.

You dial up friends while you’re on the freeway and steer with your knees. You answer calls at restaurant tables and discuss bladder surgery.