Musings

Do You Have a Quarter for the Phone?



Ok, I admit readily that I am a 20th-century man living in the 21st century. I don't care much for cell phones. I stare angrily at students who forget to turn them off in class. I don't feel the need to make myself that available via phone. In fact, I rarely even answer my landline. Friends call and I hear them over the machine saying, "Come on, pick up. I know you're there."

But, I would like to have a phone in my car. My partner and I sometimes take long road trips--and in fact are planning one to begin in a couple days--and we'd like the safety of having a phone in the glovebox in case a tire goes flat or the call stalls on some lonesome highway.

However.

Cellular phone companies, as anybody living wholeheartedly in the 21st century knows, make it damned hard to have a phone that you just use occasionally, for emergencies.

I was sold the phone pictured above two years ago by a cellular salesman--you know the type: expensive jeans, cool haircut, phone on belt, and maddeningly vague whenever you ask him about what makes a more expensive phone inherently better than a less expensive one--who assured me that that model was all I needed to suit my 20th-century cell phone needs.

Of course, he lied.

He lied about the ease with which I could switch from one wireless provider to another when I moved geographical areas. (I knew I was going to be moving. I explained it to him.)
He lied about the coverage within North America that their pay-as-you-go service offered (as I found it when I finally removed the phone from glove box and tried to use it somewhere, only to discover it was not functional where I was.)

And now the phone is useless to me. It is locked to the former wireless provider--who doesn't offer coverage where I live now--and basically unlockable, even by the former wireless provider. (I spent a while on the phone with them the other day, and was told that because the phone was two years old, they don't even have the technology to unlock my phone from their service.)

Since when does two calendar years make an otherwise functional device antiquated?

Everybody's response seems to be, "Just buy a new phone."

The woman on the phone from the old wireless service: "Just buy a new phone, sir."
The guy at the potential new wireless provider when I took the phone there initially, naively hoping they could fix me up: "Just buy a new phone."

I don't want to buy a new phone! This phone is only two years old and has been used less than five times!

Yesterday I listened to a mall-outlet cell phone salesman extolling the virtues of a phone he was encouraging me to buy: the high resolution camera; the text messaging; the games!

I just want a phone. In case I get a flat. Or my car breaks down. I don't need to take a photo of the flat. Or send a txt msg to somebody which reads "omg wtf tire flat." I don't need to play Pacman while I wait for a tow truck to arrive.

Sigh.
We're leaving for our road trip in a couple days.
I don't want to buy a new phone.
Maybe I'll keep a roll of quarters in the front seat and hope that there are still payphones to be found in this great country.

And Ryan M., slickster who sold me the phone, you are so lucky I am back on my pacificism kick, dude. Otherwise, I'd track you back down and give you a worthy-of-Ann-Coulter kick in the ass.