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Give me Phone or give me Death...

Everyone has a cool phone nowadays, don't they? Me I have never much cared for them. In fact the handful of times I have stepped inside those awful Cell Phone stores were only to replace a broken one. Otherwise I still might be sporting the same Nokia phone from back in the day...

Don't get me wrong I do see the entertainment value and the useful factor in having something like a Blackberry or an Iphone (and not to mention the coolness factor too). Internet in the palm of your hands is definitely convenient on some occasions. I can't, however, see my self using such features frequently. Emails are still fundamentally "snail mail" just without the postage stamp and as far as I am concerned it can wait until i get to a computer. I can't imagine doing Instant Message on an Internet Phone either because it is fundamentally a Computer thing too if you ask me. Point being? Well if its important enough it shouldn't be communicated via Email or Instant Message anyway...

And no this isn't a cell phone diatribe by the way if it's starting to sound like one. The reason for this of course is my cell phone. I'd been happy with this recent Samsung flip phone which was purchased last summer. But for reasons I don't care to ponder on, the LCD on the stupid phone met its demise. A sudden one (...I would assume because no cell phone I have ever owned murdered its own LCD screen). The small display LCD on the cell phone face was working still though so I knew who was calling and who texted but I am pretty sure you can empathize if I say it is maddening not having the ability to maneuver inside your phone. I was basically reduced to answering phone calls and for some ungodly reason they came in hordes soon after the damn thing broke. And that's not even including the people that were in the know that were just messing with me and my plight (damn those monsters!). I saw a couple of text messages from models I am currently conceptualizing with and another from this one girl (yeah one girl..). Obviously the models you wanna get back too right away because they might get confused if you take too long to respond haha. And the one girl well she's important so emailed her to let her know whats up...

Anyhow this all meant that I had to take a trip to the God awful cell phone store. They're awful I keep saying because every single item in every single one of these stores are overpriced. You could be looking at a four year old phone and it would still be priced around 80% its original face value. Am I starting to sound awfully cheap? Well I am when it comes to cell phones. I can and I have spent $1200 on a DSLR Lens (that would last a lifetime) without pause and $200 each for Snow Tires on my Truck (that would last 100+K miles) but AT&T would be hard lucked if they could get me to fork out more than $40 for a Phone that might last me until next summer when it decides to kill itself... So there I was prepared to spend $40 on a new phone. That almost sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? I kind of knew too that these awful people from the awful store couldn't upgrade me to a new phone yet since my contract isn't quite eligible (10 months away from it in fact...) but I was hoping that if I were dramatic and charming enough in my execution that they might make a "broken phone" exception. "Hi, it seems my phone has met its demise and with our unfortunate and untimely economic situation, I am not prepared nor do I have the money to make a new purchase. Times are tough" I lamented... Of course I would be grossly mistaken...

The AT&T guy although handsome and quite witty was sullen and firm in his response. There was no negotiating with that guy. He was as tough-nosed as former President George W. Bush was on dealing with the terrorist - There is no dealing! -. I was the terrorist and he was not at all sympathetic to my subtle cry for help. To my dismay the cheapest phone they had in stock was a $99 Motorola Razor (The phone I despise the most). And I would dig for buried cell phones before I'd used that thing... Before leaving with my tail tucked between my legs I decided on one last attempt to coax him into helping me somehow. And this time around with a little hint of sarcasm. "Would I get the same treatment, if, say, I go to a different possibly more accommodating AT&T store?". This seemed to amuse him a bit. I felt like punching him in the face at that point just to wipe the smug look on his face and tell a better story. But, ultimately, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. Perhaps deciding that I had wasted much of his precious time already he offered what he might have thought would get me out the door. "Listen, since you're scrapped for cash maybe you could waltz on down to Best Buy and pick up a $19 prepaid Go Phone and just transfer your sim card over?". Although I had a backup plan (take one of my co-workers old phones... I just really wanted a new phone and maybe a nice "broken phone" deal.) what he offered was actually genius. A new phone for $19 cool! Albeit lacking a lot of the the cool features generally found on more expensive phones (like speaker phone and blue-tooth).

I suppose I am not their ideal customer who is more than willing to spend somewhat exorbitant amounts of money on Cell Phones. Much like the four customers before myself who each picked up either the seminal Blackberry or the ostentatious Iphone. Perhaps one day I will join you in the fraternity of the cool cell phone folks (Imagine that!). But as long as a new cool Cell Phone like the Blackberry cost about the same as a Mountain Bike part, a Honda car part that might net me Fi moh hosspoweh, a new snowboard, or even a measly DSLR Lens etc etc etc, we can forget about it...

That $19 phone believe it or not despite lacking Speakers is an upgrade from last summers Samsung phone which cost me $9.99 lol....

Posted by: Marc Gabay
Thursday, April 09, 2009