Stick 'em in a room where they belong

A few years ago, a band I was in played a show inside a Miami art gallery. It was a fun venue and we tried our hand at crowd banter, and at one point the lead singer made mention that I was the only person he knew who still didn’t have a cell phone. After the show, some swank, well-dressed guy came up to me and asked, “So, you really don’t have a cell phone?”

“No,” I said.

“Wow,” he saw, awe-struck.

I later learned that guy was Julio Iglesias Jr. All together now: WTF?

These days, things are different. I’m no longer in a band, Julio and I aren’t on speaking terms, and I’ve spurned my landline and now only use a cell phone. In doing so, I’ve come around to an argument my friends often made during my anti-cell years. I used to say cell phones are annoying, and they’d say the problem lies with the user, not the phone.

And for that reason, I hope this restaurant’s idea catches on as a national trend. It has a designated cell phone room for people who need to take a call. There's no way we can (or should) ban phones, but at least this way, dining patrons aren’t annoyed by a loud-talking phone user. People at a table don’t have to tolerate the jerk who answers his phone in the middle of a meal. And, of course, if you absolutely must be that jerk, you don't have to run outside into the snow/cold/rain/whatever in order to be polite. It works for everyone.

This is such a great idea, in fact, that it’s enough to make Julio Iglesias Jr. speechless. Then again, that’s not very hard to do.

Posted by Jason Feifer at September 27, 2005 12:18 AM