Standing in line with my family outside the Musee d’Orsay restaurant waiting to be seated for lunch during our recent vacation in Paris, I found myself privy like everyone else in the general vicinity to a colossal meltdown on the part of an American man standing just behind us with his adolescent daughter.

“Give me that phone,” he demanded, in a loud voice.

His daughter shook her head, dropped the phone into her purse, and hugged it to her chest.

“I want the phone. I…