I loathe mobile phones

with a passion. I know they can be used wisely as a safety device and that they are often convenient but they seem to be taking over.
I have one but it is for a strictly limited purpose. It is there for the Senior Cat or Middle Cat to contact me when I am out - and only then if it is urgent. I turn it off apart from that.
This puzzles people. Don't you want to leave it on all the time? No. What if someone else needs to contact you? They can try again on the home phone later. If the Senior Cat is home he will take a message on the home phone and I'll get back to you.
When I am out I am out doing something. I won't answer the phone if I am riding my trike. I need to keep my limited wits about me and avoid people who back out of driveways without looking or  drivers who don't notice anything other than another car - and sometimes not even that. If I am in the supermarket, the post office or the library then I am doing something else and I don't want to be distracted by someone telling me about something unimportant - however interesting we might both find it.
I thought the Senior Cat and Middle Cat were the only people with the number. It seems not. Yesterday I had two phone calls. The first came from a representative of a local real estate agency. She started to excitedly tell me that she had just sold a house around the corner from us....how had she got my number? The Senior Cat would not have given it to her. Middle Cat would not have given it to her. The only answer is that the phone company has given it to her - along with my details. I told her this. She denied it. She claimed I had given it to her. I have put in a formal complaint about that.
The other came from the team trying to drum up support for the same-sex marriage vote. There can be no doubt at all that they have managed to buy, beg, borrow or steal some phone lists. What is more the voice at the other end was, if anything, even more pushy than the girl from the real estate company. I told them I had passed in my ballot paper. They wanted to know how I had voted. I told them it was none of their business and that no, I was not going to support the campaign one way or another. What people think about that issue is their private affair. And, I asked how they had got my number. They had of course been given a long list of numbers to call. 
The time and money that is wasted intruding on other people's lives doesn't seem to even occur to these people. 
And it makes me angry that someone, somewhere has  handed out information about me that was not supposed to be shared. No doubt they have been paid well for it too.