This could put you in a (padded) cell

I'm all for cell phones.

Let me confess up front that I have a cell phone. I have one of those plans that allows me to call anywhere in the country without being charged extra for long distance. There are a few restrictions. For example, I'm limited on how many minutes I can use during peak times, whatever that is. If I make calls at night or on weekends, they don't count. If it's a full moon, apparently my cell phone will only work between midnight and the end of Jay Leno's show. On rainy days I think I'm entitled to three overseas calls or a free key chain, whichever comes first. If I dial another cell phone on the same plan, I can press star-something-or-other and play music.

You get the picture.

Altogether, I guess I'm entitled to more than 2,000 minutes a month before I exceed my limit. So far, the most minutes I've managed to use in a single month is 17.

Obviously, I have a cell phone that doesn't get used very much. I go so long between battery charges that I have to read the instruction manual to see how it's done.

I like the security of a cell phone. I like knowing that it's with me in the event of an emergency -- although I wonder sometimes if it would be the godsend I think it would be. For example, I make calls so rarely that I also have to read the instruction manual to see which buttons to push. I suppose if you're trapped in a crashed car at the bottom of a ravine in the dead of winter while the car's fuel tank is ablaze, reading an instruction manual might not be entirely convenient.

What I don't like about my cell phone is the bill I get each month. I know the amount of the bill in advance. It's the monthly fee I agreed to pay when I signed the contract. I never have extra minutes or roaming charges.

So why does my cell-phone bill consume eight pages? Front and back?

I consider myself a fairly easy-going guy. I am careful about paying my bills. I check to make sure what I'm paying is what I owe. When I get the electric bill, I always compare it to last year's bill to make sure the electric company hasn't gone nuts. When I get credit-card bills, I compare the listed charges with receipts I've carefully kept stored in a coffee mug I keep in a safe place. Which just happens to be my sock drawer.

But when the cell-phone bill comes, I pore over the pages and pages of breakouts and surcharges until I throw the calculator across the room.

At which point my wife observes calmly: "Must be the cell-phone bill."

Honest to goodness, if I added up everything listed on those eight pages (front and back) of the cell-phone bill, I calculate I'd owe somewhere in the neighborhood of $940. For one month.

I have a shocking revelation for the cell-phone company (and it could be any of them, because they're all alike): You could save a pot of gold by sending customers like me a bill that's just one page -- or even half a page.

OK. Let's move on.

There is one thing about cell phones that I find more amusing than annoying. It's the conversations you are exposed to whether you like it or not.

I was standing in line at the supermarket checkout recently when the cell phone belonging to the woman behind me rang. She didn't bother lowering her voice. "Hi, Scootums," she said in such a way that could only mean hormones were starting to boil. "What am I wearing? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. What about you?" A brief silence. "Oh, Scootums, I love it when you don't have on anything except a Band-Aid on your old acne scar."

The cashier, who also was listening, and I exchanged knowing glances. We became very interested in the price of baking potatoes and canned green beans -- anything to blot out the mental picture of what we had just heard.

I'll bet that woman's cell-phone bill has even more pages than mine.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.