I was walking down Fifth Avenue the other day when I saw the strangest sight — a man who was not talking into a cellular phone. No one walks in New York without a telephone stuck to their ear.

I asked him, "Is anything wrong?"

"No," he said, "The airline I was calling put me on hold, and after 50 minutes my battery died on me."

"Does it bother you to walk down Fifth Avenue without talking to someone?"

"It's no fun. but everyone else is talking so they don't nottcer From now on I'm not going to leave the house without an extra battery.". . ~ ... Z Y

The cellular phone has become so much at part of our culture that medical scientists ar6 experimenting ratn implanting one in a person’s ear at birth. The phone companies would pay for the implants.

AU communication between people with then take place over the phone.

"You have to be home by 10 o'clock."

"I'm sorry. Ma. I’m in a dead spot. I can't hear you."

"If you're not going to marry me I wish you would tell me over the phone like an honest person, instead of to my face like the rat you are."

What makes it so essential for people to carry a cellular phone is, if a car his them, they can always call 911.

The weirdest thing you can see in New York City is a person without a cellular phone. The odds are he is either from Wisconsin or North Dakota. It is not that they don’t have phones there, it is just that they think it's bad manners to talk and chew gum at the same time.

I hope I will, never see another person walking down Fifth Avenue without a cellular phone in his ear. It was enough to make a grown man cry.

By arrangement with Los Angeles Time Syndicate and UNB.