"Dude, wait till you hear about last night..."

Update: European regulators allow testing of cellphones on flights over the continent. Wow, that didn't take long.

Hushed conversations, smooth jazz leaking from foam headphones, a sniffling baby, the dings and bells of the airplane communication systems. Those sounds were what we the air traveling public could depend on being soothed or annoyed by for the last 30 years or so. With most "electronic devices" interfering with navigational instruments, the airline industry forced us to keep the noisiest amongst our gadgets off for most of our flights.

That was then (as in last week) and this is now. Emirates Airlines has taken a bold new step in air travel etiquette by allowing the first ever cellphone service during a commercial flight. It's just a matter of time until the rest follow. I mean, I love my cellphone as much as the next schmo, but even for me flying was really one of the last bastions of cellphone sanity. We knew that from wheels up to wheels down we were free from being forced into other peoples lives, their problems, their worries, their jobs, their insecurities, their humor, their inanity. We knew that we could spend an hour, or three, or sixteen, reading, sleeping, eating, thinking, staring, puking, crying, or anything else deemed acceptable behavior within the confines of that metallic tube at 35,000 feet.

I'm sad to have lost that space, the freedom to do nothing, to just sit on my ass (in my case, stare out the window for most of the flight). Maybe the airline industry can turn it into a marketing ploy as they have everything else. Now for just $10 extra you can sit in the newly minted "cellphone free zone". Honestly, I think I'd pay for it (as I am for the chips and nuts offered a $5 a pop on most flights). It beats being forced to hear the yammering from her, him, me and you.