Call Me!

I had to go cold-turkey on my cell-phone addiction briefly, which means I was, in fact, completely incommunicado telephonically, as I haven't had a landline since the Great War and I've never bothered with VOIP. The reason? A cell phone serves all my needs: I can use it at home just as easily as in the car!

And normally my 'system' serves me well. I have a one-million-minutes-per-month plan, and I have five 'friends' whom I can call at any time without using any of those minutes. Gone are the months with surprise overage charges of two or three hundred dollars. Plus, I have been with T-Mobile since the days when we had to strap our forty-five-pound 'car phones' to the roofs of our Datsuns anytime we wanted to carry a passenger, or freight larger than an evening bag, so every time I talk with them I receive shocked and somewhat disgusted but nonetheless effusive thanks for my unwavering loyalty.


This gratitude has come in handy, as I tend to go through a number of phones per year and have then to change my plan each time to suit the features of the model I haven't lost or broken yet. I also have to call a lot to figure out how to use the features or software on the phone I'm just becoming acquainted with. (As well as the regular 'Please send me a new phone as soon as you can no the cheapest one no I don't care what it has yes I need a phone not a camera no I'll buy one I like later when I'm not at work crying into an office phone and deactivate the old one ASAP it's on a flight to Bangkok and I have no phone!!!! Help me pleeease!' calls.)

Now, as you can well imagine, unless I am at work, where I can comfortably cry, slaver, cajole and whine into the multi-line, my refusal to have a landline or VOIP has its unpleasant consequences each and every time I lose, destroy, or have stolen another cell phone. This last time was especially egregious, it being winter and me being about 90 pounds and the few pay phones remaining in this very wireless city not being enclosed in metal and glass as in Ye Olde Days when people used them for purposes other than setting up drug deals. It was wet, it was windy, it was cold, and I was small. Eventually quite grouchy, as well, as each time I attempted to set up my prepaid, stopgap account (which it turns out was unnecessary anyway) it seemed either I had forgotten yet another bit of crucial information, or the customer service person I reached was not privy to a different but equally crucial bit of crucial information at his end.

Much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth ensued, interrupted by bouts of shivering and clattering teeth and trips home to sit in front of the heater, after which a restorative and healing sleep was inevitable, swift, and full. The following day I spoke to a better-informed representative at great length who informed me the whole prepaid scheme was unnecessary and yes, contrary to what I had been previously told, he could indeed use an old SIM card to restart my account on a different phone.

Now I have that account on that different phone, and perhaps the Blackberry will come back to me, along with all the Terribly Important Information locked inside itself and its SIM card. For the future, though, I now have the delightful comfort of knowing that although the prepaid phone costs about sixty dollars a minute to use, it is nonetheless a phone, with a number and account and working 'send' button which I can use in two months from the comfort and privacy of my own home to order a new phone when I lose or destroy the current one.

In the meantime, call me: I don't have your phone number...