Cells from Hell

I have to go to my office today, but I'm not complaining. I have to go there to finish up a proposal for a prospective client. Since returning from my last client event, I've been too involved in things like getting my misplaced or stolen cell phone replaced to have bothered with prospective clients. But I promised that I would send the prospect my already-late proposal so he will have it no later than Saturday afternoon. That's today.

Cell phones are the work of the devil. But that work is not yet done. I'm convinced that the evolution of the devices (how'd you like that for weaving in a little anti-religious banter into a "religious" diatribe?) soon will allow cell-phone addicts to drive while simultaneously watching videos, playing video games, talking on three-way calls with their spouses, lovers, and athletic trainers, and making stock market trades. Freeway pileups of mammoth proportions will result, with hundreds if not thousands of deaths and maimings in a single such event.

Fortunately, traffic alerts will be beamed to all other cell-phone losers users, allowing them to avoid current "working" tragedies so they can create their own.

I regularly berate people who use cell phones while driving. I can always tell the cars that are being driven by cell-phone addicts; they drift from lane to lane and, more typically than not, are being driven 10 miles per hour below the speed limit. Presumably, these drivers have decided a head-on crash at 50 miles per hour is much less annoying than one at 60 miles per hour.

But I digress. Back to my cell phone. I was in Houston. I last remember (and have a record of) using it at about 4:30 pm. And the next thing I knew, it was gone. The little belt holster where I keep it was empty. My staff and I looked for it high and low. Everywhere. We tried calling it, but it was shut off, as it instantly went to voice mail. (I've since confirmed that it was not used at all, at least not with my SIM card, after it disappeared.)

My unhappy experience with my cell phone made me realize, in the core of my being, that cell-phone dependence is an ugly, dirtly, disgusting business. I didn't even use mine that much (for speaking), but the access to email got to me. At least I tried to avoid driving and using my email at the same time, though.

Anyway, my old cell phone is gone. I was expecting to switch providers (which would have been a happy thing...I'm on T-Mobile, whose coverage area is restricted to 8-block areas in large cities, with a smattering of coverage areas in the country near large congregations of jersey cows). But I discovered after calling T-Mobile that I unwittingly had been conned into buying insurance coverage (which had a $110 deductible) for my Blackberry. And, of course, my contract doesn't expire until October.

So, yesterday a box arrived with my replacement phone. After only 2.75 hours, I was part-way back to having a semi-functioning Blackberry, absent all the phone numbers I had stored in my original and absent all the special settings I had painstakingly programmed since October 2006, when I bought the thing.

Maybe I'll figure out how to reprogram the think as I'm driving to the office today. Yeah, that's the ticket!