Cell Phone Woes

I’m not one to use my cell phone very often. I mainly use it on weekends to call my friends and relatives in PA because I have unlimited free cell phone minutes on weekends. My cell phone broke about 3 weeks ago and I have been surprised to notice that I’ve missed having it to use a few times during the week. So, yesterday afternoon I decided to drive over the hill to the Sprint store to check into getting it fixed or a new one. It was 5:15 when I arrived and discovered they closed at 5. Since I was in the area I stopped at Super One grocery store and spent $85.00 that I wouldn’t have spent if I hadn’t gone “over the hill”. So, early this afternoon I went again, as they were open at noon. The customer representative looked at it and said “Oh, this is an old phone, do you have insurance?" Then he asked my phone number…well, since I never call my phone, and seldom give my number out, of course I didn’t know it. I called my husband and asked him for my number! Next question, do you know your password – I guessed, and I guessed wrong. If I could give him identification, he could give me my password. Found out that I didn’t have insurance, so it couldn’t be replaced at no cost, and he informed me that they do not “fix” broken ones. He could offer me $75 toward a new phone, but if I waited until Jan. 1st, then I could have a $150 credit. So, I looked at the cost of the new phones, of course $75 would only be a drop in the bucket toward a new phone cost. I did note that with the $150 I would be able to get one, without having to pay anything extra. Then he told me that if I had an old one, they could re-activate it, then I could use it until Jan. 1st. So, home I went. I hunted up the old one, but wasn’t planning to go back up anymore today. Then, husband, who is not a procrastinator like I am, insisted that I drive back up there and "get it done", as he put it! So, I did. Well, the same customer rep. looked at my old one, and once again said “Gee, this is really old, this is way before my time!” He tried charging it and then told me that this kind of phone won’t turn on until it is fully charged. So, I was told to take it home and fully charge it, then either come back up, or I could call customer service and they could give me activation instructions over the phone! So… I left there and stopped at Shopko, which was nearby, for toilet paper, which I knew we were running short on… and bought the toilet paper, along with several other items, totaling to $50.00. So, three trips to the mall area, “over the hill”, and $135.00 later, I still did not have a working cell phone. I decided that even if it did charge up before 5 pm, I was not going up there again today, I couldn't afford to! That was all earlier today.

About 15 minutes ago I looked to see how the charging was coming. I even looked to see if my cell numbers were still there, they were, and low and behold, I called one of the numbers and discovered that I don’t need to call Sprint to have it activated. The call actually went through. So, now I have a working cell phone again, even if it is an ancient one, I really don’t care! When Jan. 1st comes, I won’t need to be in any hurry to “go over the hill” for a new phone! Unlike some, the style of the cell phone is meaningless to me, as long as I can make my calls on the weekends to the family, I don't care how it looks!