I hate cell phones. I hate having to answer them when I'm doing something away from a desk. I hate bothering innocent bystanders who might overhear my private conversations. (Sometimes I borrow my wife's or my kids' wireless phones.) And I really hate having to overhear cell phone conversations of strangers yacking it up in a public venue. So what do I do when I'm out and I need to make a call? I use the invention that was high-technology in 1900: the pay phone. Pay phones, however, are going the way of the dime call.

A decade ago there were 2.6 million pay phones in the United States, says AT&T. Now there are only about a million. Here is the latest blow, from Ma Bell (which is really what we used to know as Cingular): "AT&T Inc. announced today plans to exit the shrinking pay phone business by the end of 2008."

"This is the right time for us to take this step on behalf of our
customers, employees and stockholders," said David Huntley, senior vice
president for Customer Information Services. "We expect that independent
providers will pick up much of this business, and, as we exit the business,
we will be able to refocus our resources to areas that offer stronger
growth potential and greater opportunity for the company."

This affects only 13 states (not Maryland) with pay phones operated by the Baby Bell that became Cingular and then became AT&T. AT&T's (Cingular's) main business, of course, is wireless phones. So can you blamed me for seeing a nefarious plot to make me buy a cellphone? What AT&T is doing, however is only part of a larger trend. Country singers will no longer have pay phones as props for scenes of heartbreak and betrayal. Nothing rhymes with "50 cents" anyway. Somebody needs to write Carrie Underwood a song about texting and IMing.