Busy or Just Rude? You Make the Call

I don’t understand the problem people have with cell phones. Sure, sometimes I use mine when I drive.

Sometimes I’ll be driving down the Hollywood Freeway and steering with my knees while I’m trying to dial. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t steer with my knees. How else am I supposed to change lanes?

And sometimes I talk on the phone while I’m shaving and steering with my knees, two things at once, which is probably a little unsafe, especially when I’m dialing.

But I’ve never had an accident. OK, so there was this one time when I nearly knocked a busload of nuns off the freeway near Mulholland. That’s all I needed, to start my day, knocking a bunch of nuns off the stupid freeway. Fortunately, they swerved at the last minute.

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My friends call me Cell Phone Man because I’m always on my cell phone. At the movies. At the ballgame. In line at the grocery store.

“Hey, look, it’s Cell Phone Man!” they say, like it’s some kind of joke.

It just feels comfortable to me, being on my cell phone. It’s where I’m at my best, that’s all.

Like, in a nice restaurant or shopping. I don’t see why I need to be out of touch with people just because I’m shopping. Heck, I’m a busy guy. I’ve got a lot of big deals going on.

At the movie theater, I can usually make two or three calls just during those long trailers, then slip in a quick call to my personal trainer during those annoying quiet parts later in the movie.

Know that scene in “The Cider House Rules” when the guy is at the orphanage? It’s just an orphanage. Boring. It doesn’t blow up or anything. So I talk to my stock broker the entire time. Sure beats watching an orphanage.

The best, though, is at a Lakers game, Row 3, Aisle 117, where I call the kids and give them a play-by-play report and tell them what Jack Nicholson is wearing or eating at a particular moment.

Or I call my friend Alan, whose seats are way up above the luxury boxes.

“Hey, Alan, that’s Kobe with the ball,” I tell him, riding him about what lousy seats he’s got, the cheap jerk.

“You may as well be on Mars, dude,” I tell him, then hang up real quick before he can make some smart remark back. Buys his seats himself, the jerk. Doesn’t even get them through his company.

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Or sometimes at a Dodger game I like to sit behind home plate and talk to my mom on the phone.

“Hey, Ma, turn on the TV,” I say. “What do you see?”

“A fat guy scratching his privates,” she says.

“No, that’s the batter. Behind him, Ma. That’s me on the phone,” and I wave.

“Oh,” she says and hangs up.

Of course, a lot of people aren’t as nice as that. They give Cell Phone Man dirty looks and stuff. I wish they’d just lighten up or something. Just because they don’t have unlimited air time. Just because they don’t have any big deals going on.

Once, when I was in the Blockbuster, talking to my wife on the cell phone about which movie I should rent, “Notting Hill” or “Never Been Kissed,” and reading her the description off the box, this one guy gives me a real dirty look, like I’m a homeless person or a criminal or something, just because I’m talking a little loud on the cell phone in the Blockbuster.

“Drew Barrymore is brilliant . . . “ I’m reading to her from the box, and he gives me this look. Like I’m some kind of obnoxious moron or something, talking on my cell phone.

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Or sometimes I’ll be driving and I’m trying to help the kids with their homework, working out the math problem on my lap as I drive. And these other drivers, they give me dirty looks, just because I swerve a little or forget to signal when I’m making a quick turn.

Once, I was backing out of a tight parking spot at Trader Joe’s and making dinner reservations at Sushi Roku, trying for the 8 o’clock, jousting with the reservations girl, flirting a little if you want the truth. Jousting, flirting, it’s all the same.

Anyway, I’m pulling out of this really tight parking space, a double latte in my lap and talking on my cell, and some guy actually honked at me, like I don’t have enough to worry about, with a steaming-hot double latte in my lap.

And then there was this time when I was on my way to LAX and I’m running a little late because the foursome in front of us took all morning to line up every stinkin’ putt, so I’m pushing it a little, not much--maybe I’m doing 85 or so down the 405 and calling the airline to see if the flight is on time and is there anything they can maybe do to delay it, this trooper pulls me over and hands me a ticket. I’m barely 20 over the limit and he’s giving me a ticket, the jerk.

“What is this, Irvine?” I say, and I call my lawyer right there, right by the side of the freeway with all these trucks whizzing by, and I hand the phone to the Highway Patrol guy, who just tosses it into my car and walks away, the jerk.

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But the worst was when I was in the drugstore, just picking up a few items and making my holiday plans with my sister, trying to get her and her 8,000 bratty kids to Tahoe, through Denver, then Salt Lake, in time for Christmas dinner.

And this big guy grabs my cell phone and throws it on the floor, then stomps on it, right there in the store, jumps up and down on it like a little kid, like he was killing a cockroach or something. Then he kind of laughed and walked away.

“Nice try, pal,” I mumbled and pulled my other phone from my pocket.

People today, it’s like they have no manners at all.

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.