“Oh my god, it sounds like you’re choking? Do you need me to call you an ambulance? Bang the phone on the table once for yes, twice for no…”
Then hang up.
This attitude is both widespread and completely baffling to me. Before cell phones, people used to miss calls all the time. That’s why answering machines were invented. Now, even with caller id and voicemail on the cell phone, people routinely answer their phones at the most inconvenient and inappropriate times. The concept of waiting a few minutes to call someone back seems to be completely alien to most people. In restaurants, during transactions with cashiers, bank tellers, airline personnel, you name it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a public restroom and listened to someone answer a call while sitting on the toilet and then proceed to make pointless chit chat.
If it’s not urgent, note who called and then call them back when you’re done! Don’t make phone calls from the toilet! It’s nasty!
God help us when we have video cell phones…
This is only weird in your private home; it’s downright freaky when it’s a public toilet stall.
Or it can be very funny. My wife and I were at a restaurant recently when she left to go to the restroom. She was gasping with laughter on her way back. Apparently the person in the stall next to her (who had been in there already when she arrived) answered her phone while in the stall, and my wife heard the following one-sided conversation:
“Hello? Hi, <man’s name>. Yeah, I’m already here. Yes, I’ve been here a while!”
(pause)
“Well, I don’t know why you can’t find me!”
My wife said she waited until the person ended her conversation to flush. Man, I would have done just the opposite. I would have farted as much as possible and spit in the can before flushing and slamming open the stall door on my way out 
If I’m on the phone with someone and I am the one who is eating, I will rotate the receiver so that it’s still on my ear but far from my mouth while I chew. I never talk to the other person with food in my mouth.
My husband is one of those people who feels completely ineffective if he isn’t doing at least five things at once, so when he calls me in the middle of the day, he’s usually eating a salad or some kind of snack.
I don’t like talking to him when he’s eating. I hear every smack, slurp, chomp, and gurgle because he insists on taking bites while talking. Then he has to hesitate in the middle of a sentence because he has a nasty habit of stuffing more food into his mouth than he can really take. By the time he noisily chews the montrous bite down to a manageable size, he’s forgotten what he was talking about. Grrr.
Other-people-eating-while-talking-on-the-phone doesn’t bother me all that much. At least not enough to get mad about it.
I have no idea what I think about it. I can’t remember ever being on the phone with someone who was eating.
I tell her I’m hanging up, then I hang up. I only have one “friend” who does this, and she should know by now not to.
I don’t like talking to people when they’re eating. My sister eats on the phone all the time when I call her and it drives me batty. I usually just say something like, “Oops! I didn’t know you were about to eat dinner. Why don’t you give me a call back when you’re done.”
Also, I refuse to talk on the phone while I’m eating. My husband and I usually sit at the table for dinner, and neither of us wants to sit at the same table as someone who’s yakking away on a phone, even if it’s just the two of us. Heck, when we eat on the couch and the phone is just a couple feet away, we never answer the phone until we’re done with dinner.
People eating while on the phone with me only annoys me if they are eating loudly because I wear a headset at work and the noise is right in my ear. I will get people who ring up who are eating things like chips or other crunchy things and it annoys me. Unfortunately I cannot hang up on them or ask them to call me back.
Occasionally I will take a swig of my drink if I have been on the phone with someone for ages and am getting very dy mouthed, but I will always mute the phone so that they don’t have to hear me.
I’m looking forward to the video cell phones with colonoscopy attachment.
“Hey Bob! Been meaning to call you. Did you see the game? Uh huh. Hey, I got a new phone. What would you say to a quick trip up my butthole?”
Hearing someone eating while on the phone with me doesn’t bother me at all. Just makes me want to eat something too!
We have video cellphones, are they not there yet? (And yes, I do mean the ones that send video of you/your surroundings while talking to another cellphone.)
If I called them and they’re eating, I’ll either apologize and call them back, or I’ll deal with it, because I’m the one who interrupted them.
If they called me while they’re eating, I’ll probably find excuses to cut the conversation short.
If they called me and make me sit here while my Corn Flakes get so soggy that I have to throw them away, fuck 'em, they can live with it, or call me back. Chips are another story; they’ll keep, so I won’t much on those while on the phone.
I don’t call somebody else and eat at them.
This is the part that I (and apparently others in this thread) don’t understand…
If I call someone, and they’re eating… I am not interrupting them if they answer the phone. If your corn flakes are getting soggy, that’s not my fault - it’s yours. Just don’t answer the phone. The world will not end. I, as a reasonable person, will not be pissed. Same with all the other weird situations in which people answer the phone.
Hmm, I would ask what they were eating and talk about it and probably decide I wanted some. 
I don’t mind hearing eating on the phone. By this, though, I mean regular eating, not the kind that’s like “UMMMMMMMMMNUM SMACK UMMMMMMM UNNNNNNNNNGH CHOMP”. I have a friend who eats and talks, and I inwardly grimace.
But the regular kind of eating, where you don’t go UMMMMMMMMMGUMMM while you eat is fine.
One of the few times I can justify the use of LOL and a for good measure.
My friend Scott and I used to do this to each other all the time, but it didn’t bother either of us. He would call me, or I would call him, right after getting home from school, while rummaging around for a snack and then talk while eating the snack. (It is very difficult to carry on a conversation while both participants are eating peanut butter sandwiches, in case you wondered.) I don’t eat while talking on the phone (I can let a phone ring while blithely munching away), and don’t know anyone else who has done it while talking to me, except for Dad, the repository of all bad habits. To him I will say something like, “Dear father, please give the phone to Mother or call me back later.” The man barely talks even when he isn’t eating, though. If it happened with anyone else, I would ask them to call me back or let me know a time when it would be better to call them.