If I don't answer your call, it must be a cell phone glitch

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

- Charles Darwin

Technology, I suspect, is subtly changing our behavior.

Take cell phones. Only recently I've started carrying one in my pocket, pretty much all the time.

The result?

No more hiding.

I can be found almost any time of the day or night and pretty much anywhere. My wife likes it.

But am I tied up all the time with chatty relatives and never-ending work queries?

Well, no.

It seems that what technology taketh away in free time, it hath given in the caller ID information that pops up on my cell phone's little screen.

I now find myself "screening" the calls. If the caller's displayed phone number is that of someone I want to talk to, I quickly answer it.

If not ... well, I can always blame it on a technical glitch.

And there seem to be a lot of those.

At least that's what the people I call have been telling me.

MAILBAG: Leslie and Jim Mills and Lester and Diane Schlein, of Augusta, send a postcard from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., where they are celebrating Lester's 60th birthday.

Marge Wood of Aiken is in the Middle East and sends a postcard from Jordan.

And Harry Mercer sends a card from Moscow State University, where he says he was invited to lecture on indigo dye chemistry. "Must have been pretty good - got two more invitations to come back - or at least I think that's what the translator said," Harry reports.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: When a man opens the car door for his wife, chances are the car is new or the wife is.

TODAY'S JOKE: The holidays were busy at the barber shop when a man and a little boy entered together.

After the man received the full treatment - shave, manicure, haircut, etc. - he placed the boy in the chair.

"I'm going to buy a red and green tie to wear for the parade," he said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

When the boy's haircut was done and the man still hadn't returned, the barber said, "It looks like your daddy forgot all about you."

"That wasn't my daddy," said the boy. "He just walked up, took me by the hand and said, 'Come on, son, we're gonna get a free haircut!'"