Public what? You’re on my private cell phone, you jerk. And furthermore you’re an obnoxious little snot.

So I’m sitting on the bus on the way home from my office last night, staring out the window at all the well kept women walking by on Madison Avenue, when my cell phone rang.

I didn’t recognize the number that was calling. Maybe it was business. Maybe a long lost friend. So I clicked on – and there on the other end was some guy whose voice instantly told you he was obnoxious, self-satisfied, young and a creep.

He was from the Public Theater in lower Manhattan, he told me, and he just wanted to inform me of of all the exciting new…

A sales call?

I interrupted him. “Listen sonny boy, you’re calling my cell phone,” I told him. “This phone is on a do-not-call-list and it’s costing me money to listen to your sales pitch so...”

“Well, I’m sorry,” he huffed, not so apologetically, “but this is the number YOU gave us.” Click! And he was gone.

Yeah, I gave them my number. I was ordering tickets for something, and as part of the transaction, I was asked for a phone number. I assumed it was to verify the transaction, not to make me a victim of junk phone calls.

But I couldn’t tell him that, because by the time I opened my mouth, he was annoying somebody else by telephone.

Catch me ever buying tickets for anything – I mean ANY damn thing – ever playing at the Public Theater again. Or if I do order anything from anybody, the only number I’ll give them is (212) 487-4270.

That’s the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.