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Some may argue with me on this, but I feel the time has come to take a stand on an important issue that affects many of us with touch-screen phones: Butt-call eavesdropping has got to stop!

To join me in support of this worthy cause, all one needs to do is to hang up right away if your uncle Roger sits on his cell phone and the pressure from his buttocks accidentally causes his phone to ring your number.

Trust me when I say: No good will come from attempting to guess what TV show he’s watching or from trying to figure out whom he keeps calling Irene,

when your aunt’s name is Phyllis.

I think it is high time we begin to respect the butt-caller’s right to privacy. The same goes for the purse caller, the pocket-caller, the gym bag-caller, the cell-phone-rattling-around-loose-in-the-glove-box caller and the toddler caller.

What has brought this important issue to mind is that I just got one of these new fancy touch-screen cell phones myself the other day. In addition to allowing me to check my e-mails and watch YouTube, this new phone apparently has the ability make pocket-calls and butt-calls with reckless abandon.

My old phone was one of those old-fashioned kind that flips shut.

So having never dialed anyone accidentally before, you can imagine my confusion when, while I was standing in line at the grocery store, my overcoat began suddenly calling out to me. “Mac? Mac? Hello?” it said. “Mac? Are you there?”

Despite being muffled, the voice sounded familiar, almost like my wife Michele.

I unzipped my coat pocket and fished around in my pocket for my phone. I said, “Michele? Is that you? I’m sorry but I didn’t hear it ring.”

“You called me,” she said. Sensing my confusion, she added, “I think you just pocket-called me with that new phone of yours.”

My new phone apparently struck again when a friend in Florida said I rang him over the weekend as well. “You butt called me Saturday,” he said. “I listened to you for about five minutes.”

“What did I say?” I said, feeling uneasy.

“You were having some sort of problem with one of your daughters, but you got it worked out in the end.”

I have a friend in Texas named Larry who pocket-calls me three or four times a week. I answer as one normally does when answering the phone, only as it becomes clear that the call is coming not from my friend Larry but from the phone in Larry’s pocket (the sound of fabric rustling against the receiver is a dead giveaway) I begin to scream: “LARRY! LARRY!” in hopes he’ll hear me. He never does.

I also have a confession to make: I’ve done it. I have listened in. I’ve done it even after I know the person’s cell phone called me by mistake.

I once overheard my cousin scolding his children (left on my answering machine from a pocket-call), and I’ve listened to my mother talking to herself in the car.

Until I was the one being eavesdropped on, I hadn’t given much thought to privacy during a butt-call or pocket-call.

Often the best offense is a good defense. So, I fully intend to figure out how to set my cell phone so that it doesn’t go about randomly dialing spouses and Floridians whenever it feels like it. And I really am going to try to hang up.

Contact Mac Lane at maclane@northstate.net