"Everyone hates cell phones. People who have cell phones are the most tiresome nosebleeds imaginable. They're forever whipping the darn things out -- -- when they're five feet from a pay phone -- -- as if this tiny device were some particularly remarkable piece of personal anatomical equipment guaranteed to fill bystanders with awe."

"And for what? An emergency? No. No, true cellmanship requires that you demonstrate the disposability of your income by using your phone to settle idle fern-bar arguments by dialing the New York Public Library or, damn your eyes, some desperately busy soul on deadline at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette."

"I personally am irritated beyond description by the sight of all these people blathering their way through supermarkets, video stores and train stations. But the ones who really make me want to grab them by their antennas and hurl them to the bottom of a mine shaft where they might lose their signal permanently are the cell-phone jerks who are DRIV-ING."

There are many instances of places where cell phones are not appropriate, or where cell phone etiquette is in short supply. We at Cellbusters believe some of this aggravation can be relieved by using a cell phone detector, to politely let users know that their actions using a cell phone may be offensive to others.

Most non-cellular chatters will probably have a fairly good idea of what I am talking about. You are having lunch with an acquaintance and -- right in the middle of discussing last night's movie -- her phone rings, and there she goes talking for half an hour with Ted from work.

Not only that, but since, out of politeness, you wait for her to finish the call before eating your lunch, the net result of this conversation (from your personal, if somewhat partial, point of view) is the ruin of your risotto, your culinary sacrifice acknowledged only by a half-hearted, "So, you were saying ...." As is the case with every good Italian, I find the very idea of discussing work at the lunch table repulsive and barbaric.

To do it with somebody other than the person with whom you are having lunch, and over a phone, no less (thereby cutting your lunch companion out of the conversation), should be considered grounds for self-defense in your friend's murder trial. Then there are, of course, the classics: phones ringing at the movies, in theaters, at the opera (always, with mathematical precision, at the time in which the heroine is about to die in an orgy of watery eyes, accompanied by a pianissimo). It is quite surprising that people accustomed to using such technologically advanced gadgets should be baffled by the linear simplicity of an on/off switch.

A person less urbane than myself could even entertain the suspicion that such people will leave the phone turned on intentionally, out of the sheer pleasure of telling the caller that they are at the opera and asking if the caller could please call later.

The following are a few quotes from people who are little fed up from cell phone use.

"Now even with all the new tunes that can be heard from these phones they are more annoying than ever."

"On my train commute, I once had to listen to the guy behind me have a 1/2 hour one-sided full-voiced baby-talk conversation with his girlfriend on an otherwise silent train. I was ready to kill him."

"Hello dear, I'm on the train, I'll be home in 20 minutes". Every day, same train, same time.

"There is nothing more annoying than someone doing business on their mobile phone while in a doctor's office. How Rude!"

"Went on vacation with a friend who talked on her cell phone the whole time with OTHER friends--in the car, walking down the street, and even in restaurants just to name a few places!"

"To receive a call during a seminar, so that you can leave to explore the town."

"The boss stops the 4-hour meeting to call the dry cleaners that he will pick up his cleaning in a few minutes and tells everyone to come back the next day and "start from the top"

"The prisoners keep banging on their cell bars with the phones so we have to replace them often!!"