If there is one thing I hate more than going to shop for a new cell phone, I don’t know what it is. I hate shopping for just about anything (with a few unhealthy exceptions), but cell phone purchases are at the very bottom of my list. You go into an electronics store and everyone is so excited about the new XYZ and the incredible DEF and the improved KLW — and it just leaves me baffled. It’s a tool, nothing more, nothing less, but I suppose in the age of iPhones and Galaxies, it’s more than that to most people.
K and I don’t upgrade our phones often. Indeed, we don’t upgrade them ever. Until recently, I was happy to hobble along with my half-broken piece of junk. Then, coming home on the bike, I got caught in a downpour and the phone got soaked in my bike bag, putting it out of its misery.
In a way, I was thrilled. No more phone, period. I don’t have to remember to pick it up in the morning; I don’t have to remember charge it; I don’t have to think about it — heaven. But there are times when even a phone curmudgeon like me has to admit that a phone can be fairly useful. Emergencies, for example. So despite my hesitations and protestations, we upgraded.
The upshot of that was I could finally do what I always wanted to do to my phone. L enjoyed getting in on it, too.
Yet the Boy was a little upset about it. “Why are you breaking your phone?” he asked, genuinely concerned. I explained that it was already broken and that L and I were just being silly, and so soon he was stomping away too, chirping, “I love breaking phones!” It was at that point that K and I thought a little addendum might be in order…