Bama's right, there are many ways to be rude . . . but the most likely to encourage continuing and escalating animosity is having a long involved conversation on a cellphone, or an airphone, or worst - one of those lousy Nextel walkie talkies.

That and smokers crowding the front door of a building blowing smoke on anyone entering or leaving will almost always prompt me to speak up. I have time and again asked someone in the next booth or barstool to either hang up, or take it outside. Most make a comment that I am a rude b**ard to be interrupting them or asking them to step back, but they do it.

Seems that the parents never taught them common courtesy, table manners, civics, health, or geography, so strangers have to do it.