I read the item on my Twitter feed in horror:  “Even the FCC thinks in-flight cell phone bans are dumb.”

Sweet Jesus.  It’s the end of the world.

While I’ve been doing little dances over the body blow the march of time dealt to the Republicans last month and the possibility that it may bring us marriage equality in 2013, I’ve been ignoring the fact that none of us like all the changes that a progressing society brings.  God knows I’ve had issues with saggy pants and bad manners, among others.  

I clicked through to the underlying article, worried that the next generation or two had caught up and overtaken me, that the millions of teens and twenty- and thirty-somethings who are never unattached from their media had finally swamped the arena of public opinion and said, “Hell yeah!  I wanna talk on my cell whenever and wherever I want!  Everybody else just can deal with it.”

No!  No!  No!  No!  No!  Please God!  No!

One of my worst nightmares – possibly worse than being at ground zero for a nuclear bomb – is spending five hours sandwiched between a preening, loud-mouthed salesman, bellowing into his iPhone, barking good-old-boy laughter and a teeny-bopper squealing and yammering about Justin Bieber and One Direction with occasional lapses into more personal territory that she, inexplicably, doesn’t think anyone else can hear.  At least with the bomb, it would all be over quickly.

I’m not a violent person, but if this vision ever became reality, either the talkers or their phones would be in serious danger.

My friend Sam once told me about riding the train from New York to Boston with a millennial who made call after call and talked loudly and endlessly on each one.  As he told it, he reached his breaking point, took her phone, turned it off and told her he would throw it out the window if she used it again.  The rest of the car broke out in applause.

I don’t know if Sam embellished the story, but I know I’ve wanted to do something like that thousands of times.  I know I would have been on my feet cheering and clapping if I’d been with him at the time.

The actual title of the article turned out to be “Even FCC thinks in-flight gadget bans are dumb.”  That was some relief.  I’d much rather sit next to an anti-social teen with earbuds jammed in his head while he plays Angry Birds on his phone than anyone who feels compelled to continue the inane conversation they were having with the person who dropped them off at the airport an hour before.  “Has it started raining yet?  No?  Because they said on the news it was going to rain by about 10:00.  I have a window seat.  Not so much leg room, but I put all three of my bags in the overhead so the space under the seat is clear.  Yeah, I know I’m not supposed to, but I got on early, so who cares?  So what’re you doing later? . . . ”

I think I’m still in the majority.  Whenever I read surveys on whether passengers want cell phone calls allowed on planes, the No’s win.  But it’s a slippery slope.  Once the phones are out for data, how long till people start “sneaking” calls?  I say “sneaking” because it’ll be no time at all before they’re yelling as though they’re using two tin cans and a string.

I only hope this one thing doesn’t change until I’m dead or stone deaf.  I don’t want anyone to get hurt.