Bitter Divorced Man
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I finally got a cell phone
15-Feb-2010
The man at the counter looked at me in a funny way several time while I was trying to explain to him that I've never owned a cell phone in my life. I know he didn’t believe me but he asked the question anyway, probably to get the conversation going. He asked me why I've never used (instead of owned) a cell phone before. I told him, I am anti technology. He looked at me in a strange way and gave me a strange smile, like that's funny but really! Are you from Mars or something! I must be one of the last humans in this country who hasn't got a cell phone yet. Of course I've used cell phones before, out of no choice. They were company phones and I had to have one for job related activities. That was at least ten years ago, maybe more. And then there was the case of my ex-wife who for the longest time insisted that I get a cell phone, but I kept saying no, till she got me one herself. Her main reason, I am sure, was to keep me on a leash like I was a dog. She promised to make the payments. This is when she was conning me to believing she had a job, so then she only kept her promise the first month and after that she turned the bills to me and expected me to pay them, which I then happily turned the cell phone back to her and said no thanks.
Those phones back then were a lot simpler than the phone I got this evening. This phone has a lot of buttons. I don't like buttons. The only buttons I like are belly buttons. Most of my shirts have two buttons, three at the most. I don't wear those dress shirts that have lots of buttons. I am anti button. Who needs buttons anyway when one can use a zipper! Most of my other things that I wear don't have any buttons, like quarter zip pull-over types, or, as long as I can remember, I've always liked wearing short-sleeve white T-shirts with blue jeans, Lee, or Levi Strauss 505 with zippers. I have tried 501s with buttons in front, but those kinds of pants take too long to undo the buttons just to pull out the wee-wee and pee-pee.
Well, I don't know why I went off on a tangent, but going back to what I was saying about my new cell phone, it has too many buttons. It looks like the more technology has evolved the more buttons we've got. The first thing I did was to ask the guy at the counter what all those buttons were for. He looked at me again, in a funny way, and told me there was a CD in the package that explained the whole thing. Gee wee! Now I have to watch a CD just to figure out how to make a phone call! I remember when I was a kid the first phone we got was this stark black rotary phone with ten numbers on a rotating dial with ten holes for each number. I'm sure if nowadays that kind of phone is given to a teenager they would not be able to figure out how to make a phone call. Maybe I’ll ask my nine-year old grand daughter to show me how to use the cell phone. She already knows.
I finally figured out how to dial my friend’s phone number, but the line went into a message recorder so I left a detail message, but the phone went dead. I don’t know why. I dialed the number again and this time it worked, so I've made my first phone call on my own cell phone already. One small step for man, one giant step for me. So then, I had to drive back to my place, and what do you know! I got a phone call. Who is calling me so fast, and what do they want from me! I'm not used to getting phone calls while I'm driving, but I manage to look at the number and veer off the road; fortunately I recovered. The number was not from my area, or anywhere else that I knew of, or an 800 number. I pressed several buttons that I didn't like but the call didn't go away, nothing happened, nobody said anything, the display didn't change at all, and there was a blinking pink color light at the top-right corner of the phone that I didn't know why it was blinking at me like I have done something wrong. Was I not supposed to push all those buttons? And, why is the light pink? Why didn't they give me a phone with a blinking blue color light, for God's sake? Should I have asked for a blue one instead of a pink color? Do they have pinks for girls and blue for boys, and somehow they gave me the wrong phone?
I ignored the call till I could figure it out later, but it kept calling me back a few times more till I got home. It kept telling me incoming call, incoming call, ring, ring, ring, incoming call! I don't get it! Aren't all calls incoming when they come? So then I pushed all the buttons there were, and I don't know, I couldn't answer the incoming call, and it didn't give up. It was like the movie Terminator; it kept coming at me and coming at me till it would get me somehow. Later, I looked up the phone number's area code on my computer and it turned out to be a toll free number in the USA and Canada, so I guess the phone company is trying to get hold of me and welcome me.
Great! I just found out that the pick color light is not just pink. It changes to several different colors, so now I have to figure out what each of those colors is supposed to mean. Great!
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Upgrade
by Latina on Sun Feb 28, 2010 12:14 PM PSTI just upgraded Arman's sidekick phone. His other sidekick was soooo out dated that he couldn't even buy another charger for it. They just don't make them anymore.
He is very happy with his latest one. :o)
So then…
by Bitter Divorced Man on Wed Feb 17, 2010 09:39 PM PSTOn the second night my brother called me on my landline and told me when he calls my cell number he gots a fax tone. After checking my cell number by calling it from my landline I verified for myself that the number indeed went to a fax machine. For I while thought maybe I had the phone setting messed up by playing with it without knowing what I was doing, and I tried to reset whatever it was that I had messed up, but without success.
I called the cell phone company this morning. I don’t want to mention their long name, so let me just call them AT&T for brevity. I talked to a lady with a perfect American-English accent, so I was sure I was not talking to India this time. She couldn’t find my account for a while with the usual information, name, account number,… but finally found me with my Social Security number, and after checking for a while she told me my service was not active because I had not accepted the “agreement”. I had no idea what “agreement” I had not accepted, but I remembered that at their outlet they told me to scribble my name on a piece of digital pad, which said “I accept”, and I signed it not knowing what I was accepting, and I told the AT&T lady that I have accepted whatever it is that I supposed to accept.
So then after checking some more she told me the number I had was not my number, it was a fax number, and she gave me another number. I told her that some people had already called me with the number they gave me originally, and it didn’t go to a fax machine before. But, that didn’t mean nothing to the AT&T lady, and so at the end I got a new number. So, now my cell phone is back in operation with a new number.
.
by timothyfloyd on Wed May 12, 2010 09:34 PM PDT.
BDM jan take Holly's advice
by Monda on Tue Feb 16, 2010 09:38 PM PSTAlso, if you care to know, I hate cell phones but gotta have it for damned emergencies. But then again the entire definition of emergency has changed, hasn't it?
bdm
by hamsade ghadimi on Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:39 AM PSTfunny blog as usual. i always have the most basic cell phone that is on the market. i rarely use it since i forget to charge it. i think it's dead right now. people have stopped trying to contact me on the cell phone. i do get text messages but have yet to learn to text back. i don't think i ever will. my computers and phones at work and home are enough technology for me.
regarding the call that you received with a threat of being charged $40 for being taken off the mailing list. since you're not rt, you don't have to worry about being charged. rt will be charged and the charges will be mailed to his address. rt can worry about contesting the phony (pun intended) charge.
since you got a new phone, without your own knowledge, you've already accepted another source to sell your name to some mafia database. just like your bank already has. just like your cable provider, utility company, etc. please don't tell me you never get unsolicited mail. that's how they get you name, phone number and address. from those who you have trusted by giving those exact information. i've been asked for money so that people stop calling. after threatening them to take legal actions, they've stopped calling. document all these calls as you have on this blog so that you're armed to take legal actions if necessary. good luck.
....
by yolanda on Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:18 AM PSTIt sounds like a scam to me.....she said that she is going to charge you $4o.....it does not mean you have to give her the $40.....
“You’ll be charged $40 to take you off our calling list.”
by Bitter Divorced Man on Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:01 AM PSTI got a strange call this morning. A lady called this morning asking for “RT”. From the delay at the beginning when I first answered the call I recognized this to be a solicitation call. I told her I was not RT, but she repeated her question again. I thought she might be from an out-sourcing outlet somewhere in India, even though she had a East Coast accent, so I spoke very slowly.
“I am not RT and this number does not belong to RT. There is no one here by that name.”
She said she understood everything I said (basically telling me that I didn’t need to talk so slowly), but she said she needed to ask me a couple of questions to take me off their calling list. She asked me again if I was RT, which I answered, in faster rate, that I was not. Then she repeated my phone number and asked me if my number was that number. I had not memorized my cell phone number yet, so I told her to hold on while I looked it on my paper work. She thanked me for verifying that she had called the same number as mine and then, get this, she said: “You’ll be charged $40 to take you off our calling list.” She proceeded to hang up without giving me a chance to ask for an explanation.
So now, I’m wondering, what does she mean by “you”? Does she mean “RT” will be charged $40, or they’re going to charge me? How do they know who I am if they called and ask for RT? And, why would anyone charge you to get you off their calling list? Was this organization, whoever they are, giving away money, or let you in on all good deals, and they would call you to let you know about them, so now they have to go through a lot of trouble to take you off their calling list, therefore they charge “you” for it?
By the way, I thought about it but I don’t think she said “National Do Not Call Registry (list)”. I am sure she said “our calling list”. So now, I’m wondering how many of these calls I’m going to get everyday.
Morse
by Cost-of-Progress on Tue Feb 16, 2010 09:42 AM PSTUse morse code....how can you afford cell phones with your alimony anyway...? LOL
____________
IRAN FIRST
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Bitter Divorced Man
by Abarmard on Tue Feb 16, 2010 09:39 AM PSTGood blog. I recently downgraded my phone to the older and simpler one. I decided that I didn't need the plans and did not want the 3G or 4G data transfer that forces in to my brain cells and kill more of them. I have limited my cell phone use to very short conversations (I transfer my calls to my office or home, and in cars use blue tooth) and txt message :)
Dear BDM, iphone is so expensive, Go for BlackBerry
by mitra northcal on Tue Feb 16, 2010 08:36 AM PSTDear BDM, iphone is very expensive. Your next upgrade should be to BlackBerry which is not that cheap when you add the data plan to it but still cheaper than iphone. BlackBerry is not like a toy but it is addictive since it has so many uses and is so convenient.
iPhone
by sbglobe on Tue Feb 16, 2010 06:49 AM PSTMaybe you can talk to them and let you change your phone to iPhone - it is much simpler (and fun like owing a toy)
LOL
by Latina on Tue Feb 16, 2010 02:48 AM PSTNow you just need to get a blue tooth so that you can use your cell phone hands free when you drive.
No the tooth is not necessarily blue (comes in different color options) and it does not go in your mouth. It goes on your ear.
Don't even get me started on the "hands free" explanation. LOL
LOL Nice story BDM
by HollyUSA on Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:11 PM PSTLoved the "Aren't all calls incoming when they come?" Have fun with your new phone and remember you don't have to learn the features you don't plan to use! That's my trick with cars :P
.....
by yolanda on Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:07 PM PSTLOL! Your story really cracked me up! Here are all the funny parts:
Her main reason, I am sure, was to keep me on a leash like I was a dog.
The only buttons I like are belly buttons.
One small step for man, one giant step for me.
**************************
Just be careful! If a police officer catches you using cell phone during driving, you can get a big ticket....my mom told me, it is over $200.
Thanks for the funny anecdotes!