Absolutely The LAST Nextel Story

The setting: Dinner this evening with a couple of family members at
Applebee's.

The cast: Several dozen patrons, including one fellow talking into a Nextel
phone, in speaker mode.

We had resigned ourselves to having to listen to a long-winded discussion
(which had been going on eight to ten minutes) when I spotted a man walking
toward the Nextel table. The man set a phone down and then walked into the
Men's Room.

"I'll be back in a moment," I told my family. And I headed to the Men's
Room. Spotting my target drying his hands, I said, "Excuse me, Sir!"

He turned and looked at me. "Sir, could you ask your buddy with the Nextel
unit to turn off the speaker and hold the unit like a phone? The rest of the
diners would greatly appreciate it."

He replied, "Sure!". When he got to his table, there was a brief discussion
with Mr. Nextel, who then told the party on the cell phone that he would
call him back, later. He turned off the phone, and everyone in the
restaurant breathed a sigh of relief.

I came to this conclusion: It was not the telephone conversation that was
important to this gentleman. It was thinking how impressed the rest of us
would be with what he was saying. Once he was asked to stop "broadcasting"
to everyone, the call no longer was important.

I'm sure you never could enforce a No Cell Phone policy in a restaurant. But
how about a No Speakerphone policy? Maybe the international symbol could be
the letters PTT with a diagonal line through the middle?

-Paul-