3/17/10

I almost bought an i-Phone just now. I got an e-mail from AT&T the other day telling me I was eligible for an upgrade on my Dingleberry so I've been giving that some thought. Of course I've also been giving thought to ditching the so called “smart phone” for a regular “dumb phone” but I don't want to lose the “qwerty” keyboard. Well, what happened was, the I dropped the Dingleberry last night and the track ball popped out. It has happened before and I was lucky enough that the railroad’s Dingleberry guru had a spare locking ring thing. This time I'm afeared he won't and I'm not even going to ask him. So I have a rubber band around my phone keeping the track ball in place so I can keep using it. Since there isn't really anything going on today, what with it being spring break and all, I decided to up and go to the AT&T store right down the road and upgrade. I went in and, of course, the guy had to gush about how I needed an i-Phone. “NO!” I said. “My $69.00 a month rate plan jumped to over $450.00 a month when we added two i-Phones. I cannot afford a third.” He was incredulous. When he looked it up though, it turns out 700 minutes isn't enough for us. Apparently it wasn't the i-Phones raping me after all. So we changed my rate plan to 1,400 minutes. Then we started looking at replacement phones for me. I suggested the “dumb phone” but the out the door price for one was going to be the same as a damned i-Phone. When I sighed, he got all giddy and shuffled me over to show me just how awesome an i-Phone is. Yawn. The keyboard still sucks, even using his special, super secret, “slide to the letter you want” technique. Yawn. After being beaten down by the i-Phone pep rally, I finally said, “Fine, do it.” Of course after paying the $483.37 phone bill from last month, and plopping $500.00 on my credit card balance, and paying however much I'm paying for car insurance, I'm broke again. We had to stop the transaction when I checked my account balance and found it lacking. Of course, seeing me call the credit onion, he had to show me how the i-Phone has a feature which will let me check my balances! Yawn. All phones have that. It’s called a phone. Anyhoo, what I should have done, right then and there, was ditch the “smart phone” for one of the free “dumb” phones without a “qwerty” keyboard and walked away. But no, I'm sitting here with this broke-assed Dingleberry for who knows how long. Well, at least I don't have to reprogram Ms. Clio's blue-tool hands free thingy. Oh shit, I forgot about all the crap I'm going to have to change, and reprogram, and update, and... hell, I might just stay with the broke-assed Dingleberry after all. Well, we’ll see.