Last Saturday the hotel sent me a 4:30 a.m. wakeup call so I could get to the Phoenix rental car terminal, return my rental car, take the shuttle to the airport, check my bag, wade through security, and make my 8:00 flight. Which turned out to be way more than enough time. A 5:00 wake-up call would have done it.

On the flight from Phoenix to Chicago, a guy was talking on his cell phone as our plane taxied onto the runway. A passenger a few rows up turned around and told him to turn it off--"It's dangerous," he said. He hung up and said he was turning off the phone. But as the plane began rising from the runwway, become airborne, I looked back (he was just behind me, across the aisle), and he was leaning down in his seat talking on the phone again. He thought if people couldn't see him, they wouldn't hear him. Wrong.

"Hey, turn it off!" I instructed sternly. Another passenger told him the same thing. He kept talking. "Don't mess around!" I said, sternlier. "The other passenger said the exact same thing. And the guy finally hung up. Jerk.