How many of you have had something like this happen? I was in a public restroom when the silence was broken by a loud, disturbing noise coming from inside the neighboring stall. After a pause, the sound came again — a gross, ululating warble that wrinkled my nose in disgust. Yep, a ringing cell phone!

I know what it's like to be embarrassed when your phone rings at awkward times — in a movie theater, at a restaurant, or while sneaking up on ninjas — but this guy wasn't the least bit bothered by committing such a horrible bathroom faux pas. In fact, he answered the phone without hesitating: "Hey man, what's up… Nah, I'm not doing anything. How's it hangin'?"

Not doing anything? First off, if I were in the bathroom and "not doing anything", I hardly think I'd advertise it — and I'm someone who frequently defaces bathroom stalls with that poem starting with, "Here I Sit All Broken Hearted." And secondly, if you break the Men's Room Code of Silence, please, whatever you do, don't use the phrase "How's it hanging?" Even a friendly, "Are you done with the Sports Section?" is going too far.

Have our cell phone manners really gone down the toilet so much that people are comfortable chatting loudly in the bathroom? To get to the root of the problem, I questioned my friend Ray, who can usually be found shouting at his cell phone like it's an Ike and Tina Turner reunion.

Me: Ray, why do you talk so loudly when you use your cell phone?

Ray: Whazzat? Speak up, I can't hear you.

Me: What? Hello? Can you hear me now?

Ray: What? You say YOU HAVE HERPES NOW?

Me: No, I asked, CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Ray: HOLY CRAP, HOW'D YOU GET IT FROM A COW?!

Me: Ray, we're not even on our cell phones. We're in an elevator. People are staring.

Ray: AN ALLIGATOR!!??

Since Ray was no help, I went against everything I believe in and actually did some research. Turns out, cell phone radiation could be eating away at our brains and causing tumors — if it's on the Internet, it has to be true — BUT if we're lucky, cell phones are only causing premature aging. According to a University of Utah study, 20-year olds that drive while using cell phones putter around like old fogies. They have the reaction time of 70-year olds, drive as slowly as septuagenarians and, I'm assuming, leave their left blinker going for miles before realizing the ticking isn't coming from their pacemakers.

So maybe premature aging explains why everyone's shouting to be heard, but radiation and tumors? I can't stomach the thought of cell phones being dangerous to my health. Then again, I've never tried eating one. According to an article in The Kansas City Star last Christmas, a Missouri woman got a cell phone stuck in her throat! Apparently misunderstanding how her "unlimited talk time" plan worked, she put the phone in her mouth and swallowed. "Or at least," a police sergeant was helpfully quoted, (and I'm not making this up) "she tried to." The woman survived; her rollover minutes did not.

Brain tumors and premature aging aside, none of it explains the behavior of that idiot and his bathroom cell yell. Why would a well-adjusted individual ever answer the phone, on the throne, in a public restroom? By now you've probably come to the same conclusion I did — that he must be a psychotic serial killer! You know, the kind of person that would have the neighbors saying, "Really? He slaughtered 15 high school students on prom night? He seemed so normal… except for this one time, he answered his cell phone in the bathroom at Starbucks!"

Of course I did what I had to — I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911, telling the dispatcher a crazy man was yelling at his cell phone in the bathroom. The guy in the neighboring stall must have heard me because when the police arrived, I was the only person left shouting into a phone.

So Ray, if you're reading this: thanks for the bail money.

Copyright © 2006 Andy Murphy
Please do not remove the copyright from this work.

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