This would be funnier if I were making it up

Gossip is it's own living breathing being when you live in a small community. Having spent most of my formative years growing up in a tiny town, I am well accustomed to the life Gossip takes--seemingly without any help from humans. I am not a fan of spreading gossip. Oh sure, I like to hear the stories... I think there is a guilty pleasure in hearing all the stories, but I really don't like to spread them. I have been bitten too many times by the "I swear I won't tell anyone" bug. All that being said... you would think that in an area as rural and remote (despite it's handy access to the I-5 corridor) as mine; in an area where the bus can only hold twelve people, people wouldn't try to have private conversations on cell phones. You would also think that, in the event a person was having a "private" conversation on her cell phone, that person would realize the irony of, while having her "private" conversation, going on and on about how she's so sick and tired of everybody talking about her behind her back and how she hates that perfect strangers know her business and she can't imagine how people she would never tell her secrets to seem to find them out anyway. And even if the irony was completely lost on her, you would think that--knowing how hungry the Gossip Creature With A Life Of It's Own (and seemingly no human aid) is--she would not cry out "but it doesn't matter that we're related! What matters is that we're in love!" Apparently Deliverance was a documentary. Who knew?