Call me call me anytime

As a friend of mine so gracefully put it, I have "rejoined the rest of the world". Namely, I am now, once again, in possession of a cell phone.

Having devoted more time and treasure to AT&T Wireless than should ever be necessary, Phillip decided that once our contracts were up, we were switching to T-Mobile. Why T-Mobile? I don't know. I don't make those decisions. This is how much I care about my cell phone: Ummm, not so much. Anyway, good thing I only lost my cell phone a few weeks before our contracts were up. Otherwise I could have gone MONTHS and MONTHS without an immediate fuzzy connection to civilization. Horrors!

My new cell phone is tiny and snazzy and infinitely cooler than my last cell phone. I originally picked out the FREE phone, but Rebecca, Queen of What's What, gave me the kind of look she only gives me when I am not wearing the proper sort of shoes. Phillip was also unimpressed, even though it was FREE, and suggested this phone. Which is all right. It's not as blue as the free one. I like the blue. I am not, however, supposed to like the little attenna/handle thingie which was described to me as "way dorky".

So now I have a phone that's even easier to lose than my last one- a TRULY dorky free-with-the-$20-plan Nokia.

I appreciate my cell phone, I really do. Especially that time I lost power steering on the freeway and was able to immediately contact Phillip to inform him of my impending death.

But here are the things about cell phones that drive me Positively Batty:

!. Godawful rings. So your tiny little phone can blast that Rage song from the Matrix? Awesome! Please don't let it ring ANYWHERE NEAR ME. (Note: Unless it is my ringbecause the theme song to Beverly Hills 90210 does not count. Especially because hardly anyone calls my cell phone as they know that it's either 1) turned off 2) forgotten in the car where I can't hear it or 3) lost. (What they don't know is that I am SCREENING MY CALLS. Heh. Am an unbelievable snot.) Anyway, I should amend this to: godawful rings that ring ALL THE LIVELONG DAY. Must I be subjected multiple shrieks of Canon In D as played on the keyboard I owned at age 10? Nooooo.)
2. People who pull out their Wee and Adorable Phones and compare them over dinner. Dinner! These people are the worst kind of boring.
3. The 5 bazillion college students who experienced the 2001 Nisqually earthquake with me in the confines of the student union building and who did not instantly dive under the tables for shelter but instead booked for the exit and stood UNDERNEATH THE EAVES furiously dialing their mommies to let them know they were alive.
4. How the cell phone will "guess" what you are trying to type and attempts to "finish" the word for you. Does this ever work? For anyone? I HATE this "feature"!
5. People who think it's totally okay for THEM to Chat and Drive.
6. And finally, the transcript of an unbearably gross one-sided conversation that occurred last spring on a Seattle metro bus RIGHT NEXT TO ME. The synopsis: a man calls up his female friend to inquire about her health after delivering her baby a few days before AND to ask a plethora of intricate and disgusting questions AND to share a horrifying amount of details concerning his own wife's experience delivering his child. If only he'd paused for breath I could have broke into his unbelievably oblivious world, a world consisting only of him and the tinny voice in his cell phone, to shriek, "STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP TALKING!" I'd type out a little transcript, but I don't want to shock my mother. And when this man FINALLY got off the bus, the gang of ashen-faced women in my near vicinity let out their breath in one long whoosh. One old lady sighed and said, "Well, THAT was tacky!"

I would just really prefer if people did all their cell phoning privately. Except for me. Because I am ALWAYS the epitome of polite and a stringent follower of every law of propriety. Really. I belong in Jane Austenville where people communicate via desperately long and emotional letters sealed with wax and delivered by breathless maids. How is one supposed to have a proper case of the vapors upon hearing that one's silly sister has Run Away with That Man while one is half-naked inside a Banana Republic dressing room, holding a tiny phone up to one's ear, and trying to decide if one's butt looks huge or not?