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It's amazing that our species was able to survive for so long without cell phones. I'll be surprised if the next generation doesn't pop out of the womb already holding one to its bawling mouth. How could we have ever managed anything like eating at a restaurant without a cell phone affixed to the sides of our heads? No wonder the dinosaurs went extinct they didn't have cell phones to cart to their dino-restaurants (T-Rexteraunts?).

Anyway, why do we go to restaurants? To get away from real life. We wish to immerse ourselves in the illusion that we have servants who bow and scrape before us to get a dollar extra tip. Going to restaurant can give you the refreshing feeling of going to an island vacation (just with less Montezuma's revenge). When you're at a good restaurant, you feel as if you rule the world. It's a feeling that many people pay a lot of money for only in a restaurant, it's legal.

So, why should we spoil it all by allowing people to drag elements of real life we're trying to get away from into our incredibly expensive food fantasies? If your call is so important that you have to spoil the evening for a whole roomful of people, then you shouldn't be eating out in the first place.

Some diners with cell phones are considerate and carry pagers or put their cell phone on vibrate in order to make their incoming call as unobtrusive as possible. People like doctors are probably always going to need to carry phones around, unless they get their own restaurants.

Cell phones are one reason why we should allow dogs in restaurants. The well trained dog could go over to the talker on the cell phone and promptly eat the phone. A big dog can just chomp it down in one gulp. The phone isn't bothered and, like most things, passes out the dog's digestive system intact. Let the phone addict pick up his ringing phone then.

(This apparently happened in 2004 in Turkey at a gas station. The dog got a sudden hankering for a Nokia and had a very expensive snack. Both dog and phone reportedly came out fine.)

To sum up, restaurants are places of (expensive) sanctuary from the everyday world. Cell phones destroy this sanctuary and so should be banned from all restaurants.

Learn more about this author, Rena Sherwood.
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