Posted Aug. 20 at 5:35 p.m.

Greetings, public transit peeps.  You may already be underway on your commutes home, but I just had to share this delightful note I received from a rider sick of "cellphone nation."  I had to censor a bit of salty language with well-placed "bleeps," but you get the idea.  And who can resist a guy who begins his note with Jimminy Crickets?  Check him out:

"Jimminy Crickets. Where's that canned message about not annoying your fellow passengers with your cellphone when you really need to hear it? I had an encounter with The Cellphone Nation on the way home after work just now. 7:00 at night. I transfer onto my 146 express bus, which zips me rapidly home along the lakefront. Last stop before we get onto LSD. Well-dressed, well-coiffured, middle-aged woman gets on. Sits down beside me. Jewelery on her fingers. A couple of shopping bags from the tony stores on that stretch of Michigan. She settles herself, flips open her cellphone, dials somebody and starts in on what clearly is going to be a trip-long conversation. Beginning with what the cosmetics counter had and didn't have. What stores she was in, etc. Obvioiusly, in her mind, she was "home for the day" and was putting her feet up and unwinding.

Well, I had been enjoying the quiet at the end of a long day. So I said "Excuse me," and stood up, heading for the back of the bus and a quieter seat. As I squeezed past her, she said, "Your stop?" Did I do the smart thing and stay silent, or say "Yes."? No. In a flash I decided to use it as a teaching moment, and I said, in a voice for her and not the people around us, "I'm just going to find a seat where there's not a cellphone conversation."
To which she barked (loudly) "Well, [BLEEP] YOU!"

I let it pass. But really, points to her for  honestly expressing what a lot of cellphone users-in-public obviously believe. The social world that surrounds them is not so important to them. In essence, [BLEEP] everybody, I'm more important than all of ya's, I'm gonna get on the blower and blow."