I swore I would never write a column about cell phones. I swore this because everyone has written a column about cell phones. Veteran writers and rookie hacks; none can resist the topic.

The girl stepped in front of my car while I was driving across a parking lot. I jammed on the brakes. Stuff went flying off my dashboard. I spilled coffee on my lap and my sunglasses fell to the edge of my nose.

The girl was young and jaunty and having a lively conversation on a phone the size of a wafer. She laughed and yakked and went right on walking, unaware of the near calamity. The mall could have been on fire in front of her and she wouldn’t have known it. So important was the conversation in her hand, she was blind to the world around her. No. 8 on the aggravation scale of 1 to 10.

I make myself sick. No impulse control at all. But what can I do? This thing with cell phones aggravates me no end. There is nothing like the teeth-grinding irritation of standing in line behind someone who engages in loud, cellular conversation.

You’re stuck there waiting to pay for an embarrassing item while Mr. or Ms. Popularity screeches and guffaws into the palm of their hand. It’s somehow unnerving. You feel like a voyeur in a public place. You don’t want to listen to the scandal unfold – hell, you don’t even know these people. But try to not listen. Until you can make your way past the cashier, you’re a hostage to someone else’s personal drama.

Girls do it; guys do it. The young and the old do it. They hold loud conversations at the next table in restaurants. They’ll have screaming arguments with boyfriends or girlfriends whom no one can see.

It should be comical to witness – this irate, red-faced woman shaking with rage while screaming in the vicinity of her pinkie – but it’s not. It’s infuriating. It’s rude and egocentric.

I have no doubt that a primary motivation for these public spectacles is to draw the attention of strangers. Look at me, everybody! I am socially dynamic! I am having a loud conversation on an advanced piece of technology and therefore I am valid! Can you hear me now?

I have a friend who becomes incensed when someone assails her with cell-phone chatter in a public place. Topping her list of aggravating encounters: a person loading up a plate at a restaurant buffet while talking on the phone with his free hand and a woman in a bathroom stall talking on the phone. My friend thought she was being spoken to and inadvertently joined a three way conversation. And the driver on Minot Avenue yacking on a cell phone with one hand, eating an ice cream cone with the other.

“I have no idea what appendage was being used to steer,” my friend said.

It’s all about context. You can forgive a guy for whipping out his phone at the bank if he happens to be a doctor on call. You can overlook the disruption if the caller has urgent business to attend to or an unexpected tragedy to face.

It’s Barbie carrying on with Betsy about Billy that drives you crazy. Or Sammy talking snowboards with Steve. Tens on the aggravation scale. Those public displays are clear signs that many people can’t handle technology. These phone addicts are the same people who break up marriages by prowling for sex and love on the Internet.

I tell you, I find myself loathsome. I swore I wouldn’t rant about cell phones and I once vowed never to sound like an Old Guy. They tend to go on windy tirades about new-fangled gadgets in the hands of young people. At one time, it was the portable stereo, or Satan’s jukebox. Old guys who wear dark socks on the beach grumbled about video games, skateboards and those dang Walkman stereos. Goldarnit.

I don’t want to be one of those guys. I’d look ridiculous walking the beach with socks pulled up to my knees. And anyway, I carry a cell phone myself. I carry it so secret sources can get ahold of me any time, anywhere. I carry it so that I can’t run and hide from editors, God forbid.

The cell-phone users who annoy us are people without even a feeble grasp of courtesy and respect. The people who subject you to personal discussions will also toss trash on your lawn, blow smoke in your face and swipe your seat in a movie theater.

They need to be punished, these cell phone miscreants. For a first infraction, all of their free minutes should be taken away. For a second offense, their tiny antennae should be bent. Any further abuses and, well … Some people just can’t be helped. Some things can only be cured with a mighty stomp and a complete obliteration of the offending technology.

Can you hear me now?

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.