Just a phone

Your Monday Photo Shoot: show off your cell phone (provided you have one).

Um, okay.



This is my...let's see...my fourth Sprint PCS phone. I hope it's my last.

I got the first one to keep in touch with my mom and her doctors and caregivers during her difficult last year (2002). Part of that time, my mom was in a rehab place with no windows in her room, and there were times when she had no idea whether it was day or night. Once she called at 3:30 AM when the phone was turned off and on the charger, and I was sound asleep. (Yes, in those days I still used to sleep at night.) She left an angry message about paying for my phone and still not being able to reach me. It didn't help that I thought I was leaving the "please leave a message" greeting on default, but was actually using whatever the previous owner of the phone number had recorded. Mom kept insisting that John had answered the phone, but she couldn't hear what he said.



It wasn't a very reliable phone, so Sprint replaced it with another of the same model. I think that was the one I took to Disneyland in 2003, only to discover that it would unsuccessfully look for a signal there until the battery was drained, while all around me people were yakking on their phones about meeting with the rest of their party in half at hour at the Matterhorn or wherever. Sprint replaced that phone, too, with a slightly newer reconditioned model.

I think it was the third one that, after Sprint insisted it was fine, could not find a signal at The Good Egg, the restaurant at the end of the same building as the Sprint store. I do know that the third phone was stolen on Christmas Day 2005 at Disneyland. The person who found and kept the phone successfully called Tarzana with it.

But these pictures are of the fourth phone, which cost me $65 or more (I forget), a higher monthly rate and a new two-year contract, just as I was on the verge of ending my obligation with that company. The guy in their store was extremely rude, tried to renege on the previous day's offer to let me get a used phone, and called me "lady" in the nastiest possible tone of voice.



The phone works, though, most of the time. I just hope it lasts another 11 months so that I can switch companies at last.

Karen