Tag: cell phone

The New Cell Phone II

I couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t do it.  I could not keep the phone that was a step above two dixie cups and a string and a step below a rotary phone.

I was lucky enough that a friend who read my last story had a phone that he didn’t need anymore.  I got a text from him last week that said “I just read Following Funny and I have an iPhone3 you can have.  Cut your losses.”  You would have thought I hit the lottery.  I was happier than a government employee on flag day.

I wasn’t overly thrilled because it was an iPhone and I’ve been operating off of Android for so long but I didn’t care at this point.  Frustration had made its way in and it wasn’t leaving.  I had realized by then that the phone had fewer features than I first thought and it didn’t always seem to ring when someone called.  I started getting voicemails and there was no missed call or anything.

Today my saint dropped off my new phone.  I of course had to text several questions to my iPhone guru friends to ask some really dumb questions (I couldn’t find where the SIM card went) so it took me about three hours to get it set up and I’m even still working on a couple things at this point.   Remember how the other phone brought in three of each contact?  Well, with this phone I’m missing a bunch of them.  That certainly could have been me messing around with the phone from hell the last few days.  Now when people text I’m going to have to ask “who is this”.  How embarrassing.

Miraculously I kept my receipt from my purchase last week so I was on a mission to return it today.  Once again I was reminded why I do not go to Wal-Mart.  When I made my purchase last week I asked the cashier if I could return the phone if it didn’t work and she clearly said “yes, just go to customer service and they’ll take care of it for you”.  Today I parked in the customer service line with the crappy phone and a smile on my face…..for about five minutes.

It became obvious fairly quickly that returning this phone was going to be an adventure.  There were four Walmartians behind the counter.  One was on the phone, one was weighing and counting money (on the front counter while people were standing there no less), one was sorting returned items and one was helping a customer.  Yes, one.  There was a line of six people waiting to be helped.  I can only imagine that they were returning some piece of crap as well.  It seemed to be more important for them to switch a money drawer and for one to leave for break than actually help anyone.

I not so patiently waited for my turn to proudly present my receipt and purchase.  I was finally greeted by the sole working Walmartian and told him I was returning the phone.  He was only too happy to tell me he couldn’t help me and that I needed to go to the cell phone center.  I said “seriously” and he said “yup, that’s where all phones are returned even if you bought it back in electronics”.   Oh good.

I walked over to the cell phone center and lo and behold, two people working, nine people in the center.  I was hoping I wouldn’t have a meltdown before I got helped.  One worker was helping a woman who was asking about monthly plans.  This woman was saying the craziest things to the worker, I just couldn’t believe the employee was so patient with her.  She was telling her about how she got her last four or five cellphones which was completely irrelevant to what was happening today.  All this while people were waiting!  This wasn’t social hour at the local tavern.

The top of my head was about to explode when the woman finally stopped talking and I could get helped.  I was a bit crabby until I saw the woman’s face who was helping me.  She was clearly more frustrated than I was so I put on a pleasant face for her and did what I could to make my visit quick.

I’m happy with my new phone and I’m sure it will take me a few weeks to figure it out and get all my contacts back.  By then it will probably break and I will have to get a new one yet again.

Advertisement

The New Cell Phone

The cell phone I’ve had for well over a year has been limping along for a couple of months and I’ve been living with it.  Why?  Because I haven’t wanted to bother finding a new one, that’s why.   Getting a new phone stinks, I struggle with it for months before really knowing how to use it.  Hell, I think I had just figured out the one that was limping along.

Well, the other night the limp turned into a full-body crappie flop.   Ok, yes, it had help.  I dropped it on the floor and it completely gave up on me.  I picked it up, put the battery back in and hoped for the best.  The best did not happen.  The worst happened.  The screen looked like an old television that was losing its picture tube.  A bunch of multi-colored lines with no sign of the actual picture.  I played it cool because it happened in front of someone and no sense getting worked up when I had to finish out my shift and it was only 30 minutes in.

As the night wore on panic set in.  I no longer had a working phone.  I’m going to have to get a hold of people to see if anyone has one I can borrow until I get a new one.  Really?  How was I going to do that?  Smoke signals?  Drive to their houses or places of work?  I certainly couldn’t call them from the work phone because I don’t know anyone’s number by heart!!  Damn technology.

I got home about 1:30 AM and was in full panic mode.  I’m on a month to month plan so walking into the cell phone store and asking for a new phone for eight bucks and a two-year contract isn’t a possibility.  I actually have to buy my phones new or used.  Well, I don’t want to take out a mortgage to buy a brand new schwanky state of the art phone so I was thinking that buying one off Craigslist may be my best bet.  Okay, that was going to take too long and too much hassle with no phone to call from.

At 1:45 AM it came to me.  Wal-Mart.  Now, for those of you who are new to my ramblings I would rather have a root canal without Novocaine than go to Wal-Mart but it seemed to be my only choice.  I ventured out to buy a new phone.  I did what I set out to do and I bought a new phone.  I’m not happy with my new phone but I have one.

My old phone was an Android so I thought I would buy another Android.  Little did I know that the non-contract phones that Wal-Mart carries are one step above two dixie cups and a string.  I’ve never been overly picky about my cell phones, all I really want to do is talk and text, anything more than that is a bonus.  With this dollar store Android I bought it’s a crap shoot as to whether I will actually get to talk or text.  I certainly will not be able to do both at the same time.

I switched out my SIM card and my SD card and thought that I would be good to go.  Not so much the case as I looked in my contacts and there were five numbers there.  Ok, I probably have to import them.  I figured out how to do that and left it work for about 15 minutes.  I tried to read the booklet with the features but there really weren’t many features listed.  Great.  The import finished so I checked out my contacts and lo and behold there were 600.  600????? What the….?

Upon further investigation it had imported three of everything….and I mean everything.  There were numbers imported that I had deleted a year ago.  This phone managed to find  numbers that weren’t actually there.  Goes to show you nothing is ever truly deleted, be careful.  I started to have hope for the phone, maybe it was smarter than I thought it was.

The next morning my hopes were dashed when I attempted to text.  It has no dictionary, no auto correct, no suggestions (other than the names that are in my contact list so every time I type an A, it suggests that I use Adam), nothing.  Even auto correct would be welcome at this point.  I sent this text earlier “I have norhung better to do than wirry about whats on tv.  This fuckinf phone diesnt even tell you when something is spelled wrong its so cheap.  Urgh.”  Honestly, my fingers are too fat to not make mistakes, I could really use some help.  If I would have picked corrections for my misspellings it would have said “I have nonnie better to do than wenker about whats on tv.  This frankie phone dan even tell you when something is spelled wrong its so cheap.  Urgh”

I downloaded Dice with Buddies and Kindle and the phone told me it’s running out of memory.  I cried and wanted to throw it.  I’m not going to buy yet another one so I will struggle through it until I can afford a good one.  For those of you who text me, don’t expect anything to be spelled correctly so you’ll have to figure out what I’m trying to say.