TO ME, a tele- phone is simply an instrument to communicate with others.

That's why I get tickled when I see these stories on the 6 o'clock news about people "losing their identities" when their cellphones get stolen.

First of all, to me, losing one's identity means either not knowing who you are or turning into someone else. I am quite confident that I would neither forget who I am or turn into someone else if my cellphone were stolen.

Unlike some people, my cellphone is not directly wired to my brain. If someone swiped it, I would not need the computer chip inside to remember who I am.

Yes, I do have a cellphone. I know I am just a poor, ignorant country boy trying to make it in the cold, cruel world, but I do live in the 21st century (that's the cool thing to say).

And right here I must confess that I do use that phone for something other than communication. Since my car clock bit the dust, I use the phone to tell time when driving. Further, I used it one day last week to kill a wasp that got into my vehicle. That cellphone flattened him pretty good.

I don't have a smart phone; my cellphone is pretty dumb. In fact, it is about one step up from a rotary dial phone.

I usually keep my cellphone in my car, right there in plain sight. Now I can hear the gasps out there even as I write this column.

"He keeps his cellphone in plain sight in his car! Somebody will steal it and get all his personal information! They'll then use that information to make big purchases and he'll wind up broke."

First of all, my cellphone is so antiquated that a thief would laugh when he saw it. Second, my car is twice as old as my cellphone, so only somebody stealing for a junkyard would even give it a second thought.

Third, the only sensitive personal information a thief would find on my cellphone would be the telephone numbers of my three favorite gourmet dining establishments--Baby Jim's Snack Bar in Culpeper, the Madison Tastee-Freez and the Snack Shack in Spotsylvania.