On any seemingly normal day, you may stand behind a seemingly normal chap dutifully extracting dough from the ATM.

“Hey. Yeah I’m broke right now,” he says to no one, facing the machine. “My balance is crap. (pause) Whatever, Britney’s hotter.”

You consider running. Who the heck is this guy talking to? The rich elf shoving the green goods through the ATM to his psychotic fingertips? Suddenly, he turns. You flinch. But it all makes sense now. Why, there’s a minuscule, molded ear-piece with a microphone attached to his cell phone. Huh.

Vet medicine junior Marcus Leslie has, perhaps, been that guy.

“I wear it all the time,” said Leslie of his cell head set while working at the Verizon Wireless stand at the Meridian Mall, ear-piece intact. “I use it as my house phone because it’s cheaper. If it’s not in my ear, sometimes it’s tucked in my shirt.”

Leslie talks freely on his headset and doesn’t care if people look at him cross-eyed for it.

“I don’t care, but people look at me like I’m crazy sometimes,” he said.

Leslie once owned a Mobile Pen, which has an end that blinks a red light when the cell receives calls.

“I stepped on it,” he said.

Now that cell phones arguably encrust most aspects of society, the industry is making a killing decking them out, as enthusiasts hop to purchase leather covers, hands-free sets and maybe even a light-up keypad for good measure.

Lisa Calcagni, owner of alternativewireless.com, hopped on the cell accessory bandwagon sniffing a digitally ripe wind of potential profits. She abandoned her job in the cell phone service sector to hawk anything from headsets to mobile pens from her Web site. The e-business sells the accessories after she buys them from manufacturers.

“We decided that the accessory market was expanding and there were a lot of opportunities,” Calcagni said. “So we decided to get involved in the accessory, rather than the phone end of things.”

Calcagni said consumers gobble car chargers, antennas for better reception and leather cases.

Pat Seidlein, 16, works at the Cell Phone Accessories Stand at Meridian Mall and agreed customers stick to the basics, such as a leather case, for the most part. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A hologram of Jesus covers the face of Seidlein’s cell, which is nestled in a leather case. His friend Scott Ehlers, 16, also works at the Accessories Stand. He has a face plate, keypad and battery that light up when he receives calls.

“The reason I don’t have more stuff is that they don’t make more stuff for my phone,” Seidlein said of his Audiovox. “I used to have a light-up antenna, but the reception was bad, so I got rid of it.”

Seidlein and Ehlers use their cell to show customers the possibilities of accessorizing.

And there are so many.

Rubberized, zebra-striped, glitzy-metallic, tiger-striped, Dalmatian-dotted, flamed-out and chili pepper-ladden are among a dizzying list of options for face plates.

Antennas and special key pads can be purchased to blink and blitz when calls arrive.

The possibilities seem endless. Cover the cell in leather and make it one bad mutha with an earing-esque doo-dad that dangles rebelliously from its antenna (www.coolstuffusa.com). Or coat the cell with a glossy plastic cow skin cover as it squeaks a digital rendition of Beethoven’s “9th Symphony.” Sunlight may glitz and gleam off the glue-on, plastic “Fone Jewlz” that consumers may, or may not, glue to the face of the phone. It’s all about preference.

Packaging senior Annie Moore covers her cell with fuzzy Tigger or Piglet covers.

“It’s just like little stuffed animal,” she said. “But it covers your phone. It’s from Avon.”

The covers were a present from her best friend, and Moore said reception to the fuzzy Pooh characters is usually quite warm.

“Mostly people are like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool, where did you get that?’” she said.

Moore added the covers make for a good conversation piece and has no reservations about chatting into Tigger or Piglet at any given public place.

The only problem?

“When you talk on the phone, Tigger’s tail hits you in the face, so it looks like I’m talking into Tigger’s butt,” Moore said.