By JEFFERSON WEAVER

The demon that lives in my pocket beeped “No Service.”

It was one of the nicest things I’d seen all day.

I do not deny that cellular phones have almost become a necessity in today’s world, especially in my line of work.

I will admit that occasionally I use the speaker option to answer a call while driving, and I have been known to huddle my phone close when I couldn’t step outside a restaurant or business to take a call.

But I don’t have to like it.

Nor do I have to like the folks who persist on chatting, yakking, or even yelling on their phones in public.

It’s bad enough when someone is zig-zagging across two lanes of traffic because they won’t simply say, “Let me call you when I get stopped.” I fail to see why the conversation has to continue after they get out of their 60 miles-per-hour phone booths.

All I can figure is that some folks are addicted to their phones. They wander about in a daze, waiting for the next cellular summons, forgetting that they didn’t get the magic privacy cone option with their telephone.

Haven’t heard of the privacy cone?

It’s a little idea I cooked up one day while sitting in a restaurant, all the while listening to a young lady in the booth next to me. Without meaning to eavesdrop, I realized she should have been charging $3.95 per minute for all the things she was saying to the fellow on the end of the line.

Her X-rated conversation – oh all right, maybe it was NC-17 – made me think of the privacy cone.

The idea is this: an invisible, soundproof shield would surround phone users whenever the phone rings. Such a scam would be a dandy way to make a few million bucks if you simply convince people that, for an extra few bucks per month, the cone ensures their privacy and protects others from overhearing someone else’s conversation.

Problem is, nobody would buy it.

Too many people don’t care if we hear about the lack of milk and canned peas in their home, the latest gossip regarding a neighbor, or the fact that Wal-mart has a glorious sale going on right now.

Even on the highway.

I used to keep track of the number of car crashes I’d covered where the driver was talking on a phone while driving. After a few dozen, I gave up.

I almost saw another one a few mornings back.

I was driving along, minding my own business, no more or less excited about going to work than the other folks on the highway, when I saw a big black SUV rolling up behind me like a summer thunderstorm.

At the risk of upsetting my friends with the Highway Patrol, I’ll admit that I was driving four miles above the speed limit. Not something I do normally, but I was running a minute or two late.

This SUV, however, was traveling much faster than that – and in both lanes, to boot.

I had seen the SUV before; the driver is an attractive young mother with whom I exchange waves on a semi-regular basis.

This day, she wasn’t waving; she was weaving.
That big black vehicle almost touched the white line on the left lane once, and went off the right side twice. The centerline may as well have not been there.

As the SUV got closer, I noticed the driver leaning on the driver’s side windowsill. I became concerned, wondering if she was sick, hurt or having a seizure.

She wasn’t hurt or sick.

She was, in my opinion, just being stupid.

As she passed me – nearly taking off the side mirror, I might note – I saw her having a very animated conversation on the phone. The chat was apparently so long she became tired and leaned against the windowsill.

I hope that conversation was truly a vital one, since I guesstimated her speed at around 70 – in both lanes. Disgusted, I put my phone down and looked for the next suicidal Suburban-driving phone-talker.

As if the wrecks and the near-collisions weren’t enough to convince anyone, a firefighter friend of mine recently showed me yet another reason to turn the dang things off.

How many times have you seen the little sticker on the side of a gas pump that suggests avoiding use of an electronic device beside a machine that pumps volatile liquid out of a tank half full of fumes?

A lady up in Maryland didn’t pay much attention to the warning at her favorite filling station, and a security camera caught the live action when discharge from her phone ignited the fumes from the gasoline she was pumping. Thankfully, the lady wasn’t seriously hurt, but the video was eye-opening.

While I do not understand the need for onboard DVD players in cars (but the things are a column for another day) I’d almost like to have one, especially if I had a copy of the “fiery phone” video.

I’d look for people like the young woman I saw at a gas station the other day, blithely filling her tank while chatting away for everyone to hear. I will not attempt to describe her conversation, since this is a family newspaper, but her repeated use of one particular epithet made me think she was trying out for a Quentin Tarentino movie, or at least a rap video.

This young woman was driving a full size sport utility vehicle, and had time to finish one call, make another, and then make a third before she was finished pumping. I then watched as she got back in her vehicle, drove up to the window (still talking) and paid for her fuel. She then pulled out of the parking lot – and she never took the phone off her ear.

From what I could tell of her conversations, they were primarily composed of rhetorical denials such as “No way,” “Unh-UHHH!” and the ever-popular, rather emphatic, “BLANK no she didn’t!”

That’s the type of person I’d like to sell the privacy cone – as long as there was a way to vent the gas fumes and the hot air out of the darn thing.

If you can figure out a way to help solve that problem, give me a call.

I’ll call you back if I’m on the road – unless I’ve been run over, burned, or mortally embarrassed by someone yakking away on the demon in their pocket.