Last night I tried to make a quick stop at my local supermarket for a few essentials (milk, People mag, and some Chunky Monkey) on the way home from work. I say tried because I ended up getting stuck behind a creeping-along-at-a-snail's-pace car as it entered the packed parking lot and proceeded to crawl along, moving in fits and starts, looking for a parking space.

Okay, Laurie, relax. It’s probably some cute little old lady, extra-cautious type out to score her essentials: milk, People mag, and Geritol. Just be patient, I chided myself. I ended up parking next to Grams, then stole a look to my left to get a visual and see if she needed a little help getting out of her car. Turns out Grammy was a 30-something soccer mom type, yak, yak, yaking on the cell she held in one hand as she used two fingers on the other to steer her car into a parking spot that was w-a-a-a-y to close to comfort to mine.

Call me cranky but: give me break. If you absolutely must drive and chat (“Really? Poindexter aced that exam! And after it was over, he went on to score the winning basket at that afternoon’s game!”), get a hands-free thingy or just pull over to the side of the road. (Never mind that it’s illegal to drive and talk on a handheld cell in the great state of New York and elsewhere.)

Last I saw of my little-old-lady-turned-cell-phone-junkie, she was yakking away in the produce section and using those same two fingers on her other hand to steer a shopping cart w-a-a-a-y too close to comfort to a precariously stacked pyramid of grapefruits. Me? I headed to the freezer section to snatch up my ice cream and cool off.