Crazy Cell Phone

In general, I am pretty cheap where cell phones are concerned. We all have the pay-as-you-go service from Virgin Mobile USA which costs as little as $15 per quarter (Tandy and our oldest). I use my phone a bit more than that, nonetheless my rates are quite low. When I am out of time; I am out of time. No huge bill at the end of the month.

Anyhow, the girls bought me the Slice by UTstarcom (Phone Scoop) for Christmas. When I first received the phone it was great. My old slider, which I had for two years, was wearing out terribly and it was time for an upgrade. The phone is, however, possessed by gremlins! I lock the phone every time I put the darn thing in my pocket, but nonetheless as I pull it out some button calls 911!! You can imagine my horror the first time it occurred. It happens so often now, that I've gotten accustomed to the experience and just push the terminate call button. I struggled to love the phone, heck it has a great Texas Hold'em Poker game, until...

On Thursday I was sitting in my office working when I heard two people talking quietly. I looked toward the door and found it closed. There was no one standing outside my office. Suddenly, I realized the people are in my pocket! I fished the darn phone out and there was an active call with two people chatting about something. I was so upset I stabbed the terminate call button and was ready to throw the thing in the trash can. Just sitting at my desk and bumping into my chapstick or pocket knife was enough for it to engage. I pressed the call history button to see what the number was and the phone responded, "Phone is locked, press * to unlock." Whatever...

I am going to buy another cell phone before I wind up charged with littering for throwing this one out of a window. I took today off since we were pretty sure it would be a snow day and it would let me spend time with the girls before heading to GITA 2007. While Circuit City ineptly prepared Tandy's new iMac, they sent it home without its power cable, we sought refuge in the Maine Mall drinking iced chai, steamed milk and looking at the cell phones. The Mall was a ghost town, so the young bucks in the cell phone kiosks were hungry and aggressive. After so long with Virgin Mobile USA, who have been great for us, I just could not bring myself to sign a contract. It seemed so...binding and restrictive...so final! On the other hand, Motorola KRZR was incredibly sexy to a gadget freak like myself. I must have touched every cell phone in the entire Maine Mall, which is really saying something, In the end, I went home still bearing my stupid old possessed-by-gremlins cell phone.

I took a closer look at what Virgin Mobile USA could offer me to replace this evil Slice. While I had Bluetooth on my required list this morning, I've since realized that the minimum $100 bump in pricing is probably not worth the convenience. Actually, I am totally sure. I am thinking about taking the easy way out and going with the Slider Sonic, a natural upgrade to the Slider which served me well for two years.