Suppose you're heading into a federal courtoom in Florida. Suppose you've got your phone with you. It's probably got a camera on it -- which means you won't be allowed to bring it into the courtoom; the state has banned cameras because they don't want the identities of protected witnesses revealed.

This is happening all over the country, and it's producing a hilarious industry of merchants who, for a fee, will hold your phone while you go inside. According to a story in the Monterey Herald, there's hot-dog stand outside the Monterey federal court that will store your phone for 10 bucks. And if he's not free? One women recently tried to get the guard to let her take her phone inside, and wasn't able to:

After begging failed to sway him, she walked outside to a nearby planter, rearranged some shrubbery and buried her Nokia camera phone.

When she returned to the planter to retrieve her phone, she ran into another lawyer digging away at the same soil.

''The guards were laughing,'' she said.

(Thanks to Textually for this one!)