BOSTON -- When did I first come down with cell phone rage, you ask?

Oh, maybe you didn't ask, but as an advocate of free speech who has been sorely tried, I'll tell you anyway.

It came over me at lunch a few years ago when my companion's pocketbook rang. For the next 10 minutes, this very, very busy woman talked to her office while I was left to study the patterns on my arugula.

Then, of course, there was the day of my niece's college graduation when a very, very important father was seen talking his way through the baccalaureate.

Finally, there was the evening when an utterly indispensable man seated near me at the theater could be heard doing his own dialogue over the phone to some absent co-star.

By now there is hardly a person in the country who hasn't experienced cell-phone abuse and inner rage. There are 66 million phones bouncing off satellites and at any moment I am sure, 10 percent of them are offending someone.

So I was thrilled at the news that a New York commuter railroad company is considering a no-phone zone. It seems that the suburbanites who trek to the center of Manhattan did not suffer their phone rage silently. Surrounded by the chattering classes, they demanded the passenger's right to ride in a car without noise pollution.

The presenting symptom was volume control. As the spokesman for the train company said, "For reasons that we can't figure out, people are hollering into their cell phones."

In fact, cell phones have become the boom boxes of the 1990s. Gray-flanneled men and women who wouldn't be caught dead carrying a boom box onto the commuter train carry a mobile voice box that disturbs the peace with equal disregard. The cell phone, however, has become a status symbol on par with the SUV. It's audible proof that you are too busy to waste a minute and too essential to be out of reach for a second.

Anyone who has shared a park bench or an airplane with a phone abuser can tell you just how free he is with his speech. I have been bombarded with the details of business and other affairs. If, on the other hand you turn sweetly and ask -- "What did you say that stock was selling for?" or "Why is your friend's wife leaving him?" -- you will be accused of eavesdropping.

I admire the guerrilla tactic of the New York commuter who sat beside so many lawyers conducting business that he finally made a tape recording that blared, "Your attorney-client privilege is no longer privileged!"

OK, cellular phones are great for emergencies. In my life, an emergency includes getting directions when I'm lost, ordering Chinese food to take home and -- oh well, I admit it -- calling my mother.

But if cell phone rage is a reaction to noise pollution, I think it's also and more commonly induced by public space pollution. Not long ago, everyone was commenting on how the Walkman privatized the public world, turning people inward so they could waltz or rock through their community without being a part of it.

Well, the mobile phone promotes a verbal gated community; you can shut out everyone around you. It's become a personal accessory that allows the oblivious to live in their own world.

Consider if you will a Bethesda, Md., man who talked away on his phone while his hair was being washed, cut and styled. If I were the hairdresser, I would have tried my skills at a Mohawk.

Soon we are all going to be equipped with one personal telephone number that goes with us everywhere we go. The mobile phone will be the phone. Remember the 1980s telephone ads: Reach out and touch someone. In the next millennium, we'll be looking for ways to be out of reach.

May I suggest that the no-phone zone on the commuter train is just the beginning. In Hong Kong restaurants, they already ask you to check the phone with your coat. What about a restaurant with two sections: Phone or no phone. And while we are on the subject, what about a no-phone lane on the highway?

So far, the railroad is worrying about free speech issues. Can you ban talking? But the last time I looked at my bill, cell speech wasn't free. In any case, somewhere tonight you can be sure there's a cell phone yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Ellen Goodman is a syndicated columnist.

Pub Date: 3/23/99