I have made up my mind that I must turn off my cell phone when in a public rest room or in a dressing room at a women's clothing store.

It is so annoying to hear someone next to you speaking and carrying on as though they were either talking to you or to themselves. This is what I had first interpreted a couple of years ago, before I realized that the person talking to themself was actually on a cellphone with a head or earpiece. I still sometimes, at first , think someone is speaking to me....."Do you know how much these things are?" I was in Trader Joe's today and a man right next to me was fondling the Andre Double Creme Brie cheeses in the Dairy Case. I looked at him and I was the only one standing next to him.....It could have been embarrassing because I almost answered him. Just before my mouth gave me away I noticed he had that ear wire in his other ear and walked away muttering something to his phone companion about the cheese being too expensive.

Cell phone addicts will give out their cell phone to everyone and carry on conversations, it seems, that go on forever. It wouldn't be so bad if it was private. But they carry on these conversations loudly in public places, parking lots, banks, restaurants, stores and markets............and of course there is always someone who forgets to turn off their cellphone in the movies.

The reasons are obvious why this can be so annoying. I am not interested to hear the private goings on of a total stranger.

I have given out my cellphone number to my Mom and Luigi only. Luigi has the cheapo $19.99 a month for 60 minutes and unlimited on the week-end. And I do not use my cell phone that much.

However sometimes he has called me in a public restroom. Someone is in the stall next to me, and can hear every word. But the most embarrassing situation was when I was trying some clothes on in a dress shop in Milano. My phone rang as I was coming out to take a look in the mirror. The phone rang, I dropped my purse on the floor and everything spilled out......but I could not find my phone......and the ring is the Auld Lang Syne New Year's song and it gets louder if you don't pick it up right away. By the time I was able to find it, everyone in the store stopped what they were doing and looked annoyingly at me. I answered my cell phone and practically whispered into it. Luigi yelled at the other end that he could not hear me. You could have heard a pin drop in the dressing room area.......I had to explain to Luigi to call him back later, with my purse and camera bag stuff all over the floor....and a line of women waiting to get into a dressing room.

How annoying.............a woman with a cell phone , totallly inconsiderate of the people waiting in line, and who are forced to listen to her private conversation..........