Stop calling during your cab ride!

I often receive calls from friends in taxis. These calls are punctuated by instructions to the drivers, and they end when the destination is reached ("I have to pay now"). I end up feeling insulted. Am I being hypersensitive in our time-stressed modern world? -Linda, New York

YOU'RE RIGHT, THESE CHATS are choppy, annoying, and call Into question the intelligence of people who can't entertain themselves for 45 blocks. But sometimes the urge to multitask is unbearable. Don't be shy about pulling the plug. At the first sign of a snippy "I asked you to cross on 19th Street," try: "I'll let you go now. I can hear you've got your hands full." We may not have stayed with our riders to their final destinations, but the good news is that their next victims are already programmed into their phones.

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