I Had A Cell Phone Once...

A couple weeks before Christmas a few years ago I had gotten off work a little late. I had made a couple stops and on my home had forgotten all about the parade down town. I detoured around the blocked off streets and got a tad confused.


When I finally got home, Shawn tore into right in front of his buddy, too.

"WHERE THE %#@*! HAVE YOU BEEN?? Do you know how worried I've been? Why didn't you call?!"

This from a man who NEVER calls. This from a man who works with someone who has a cell phone but will not call if he's going to be 2 hours late from work. This from a man who works with a phone on property (in the office) and will NEVER call if he has a sudden backed up toilet in apartment 215.

I "clamly" explained to him my dire situation.

"How was I supposed to CALL? I turned down a wrong street and was actually PART OF THE PARADE!! A policeman actually had to have several people back up so I could get out! How was I supposed to call you? What, leave my car in the middle of the Christmas parade to find a pay phone? I TOLD you I had a couple errands, that I was going to be late!"


So that sums up the story on how "we" decided that I should have a cell phone.
It is also the beginning of my long running war with Alltel.

I searched the interent forever looking for the cheapest possible plan out there. I found one with Alltel that was prepaid so there was no contracts or any sort of give-us-your-firsy-born-commitment.

It was $25 a month for 100 anytime minuets and 1,000 night and weekend minuets. Yeah, it was a crappy plan but at least I had it. And now people could call when the computer was on in case of emergency...such as...

"Hey, I'm glad I caught you! Do you have that book I lent you?"


The minuets were used wisely.


Every month I'd go to Alltel to pay my $25 for the next month's minuets.

Silly me never brought a magazine so I stewed so days on end while the employees chatted on their own personal cell phones or disappeared for hours taking a so-called bathroom break. The people in that place are so into themselves that it's not even funny.

I decided that it must me nice to have a job where you can do absolutley anything you want with no regard whatsoever to the customer, who is in fact the sole reason you have a job in the first place.

But SHawn was adamant about my having a cell so I kept the charade of my friendliness up at the Altell store. For a while...

I kept up with my minuets like a squirrell keeping his winter stash. I refused to be charged for going over.

After a year of the WORST customer service, phone service, and never once having a question answered with any sort of complete explanation I gave up.

I had 1,000 night and weekends minuets, I knew that and I hadn't used any of them. But my phone wasn't working. It took hours and hours and days to figure out what was wrong because some idiot was too busy chatting about the pedicure she got last Thursday.

According to Alltel, once I used up all my 100 anytime minuets, the 1,000 night and weekend minuets were no good.

But...that's what I paid for. I paid for 100 any and 1,000 nights and weekends minuets.

Doesn't matter. WE are the cell phone provider! WE make all the laws and all the rules. WE can tell you what you can do, and what you cannot do! In fact, if we cell phone providers wrote marriage contracts, no one could ever get divorced. We're just that good.



So that's when I dropped the cell. I never used it and it was basically costing $25 a month for an hour and a half of talk time.

Some great deal, huh?