Again, with the cell phones

Since when is it appropriate to talk on a cell phone in a public restroom?

I posit that it has not become, and never will become, appropriate. People are doing their private business in there. It's awkward enough to have other people in the restroom with you. This awkwardness is exacerbated if your bathroom companions are jabbering away to someone on the other end of the line who (1) probably has no idea their conversation partner is sitting on the pot, (2) probably doesn't know you (maybe it's better that way?) and (3) probably doesn't want to hear whatever might be going on in the bathroom.

This happened to me most recently when I was at the SASF Conference at the Lake of the Ozarks. Which makes it all the more inexplicable and awkward, for two reasons:

First, this woman was an attorney, a conference attendee. And as best as I could tell, she was talking to someone else back at her office. Not appropriate.

Second, lawyer jokes aside, I would have expected better. We are professionals! We should at least pretend to have more social skills than my dad's dogs! (No offense meant, but you all know what I'm talking about.)

I admit, this is not a 150-million-gallons-of-crude-oil-leaking-into-the-Gulf-of-Mexico scale problem. But really, people, develop a sense of decency, would you?