Caving In

If I have said it once, I've said it a million times: No, I do not have a cell phone. I do not want a cell. I have 5 fricken e-mail addresses, a laptop that stays with me all of the time because of school. I have Facebook and Twitter accounts. I have instant messaging. I have an old-school landline, and I carry a pager and phone at work. If one wanted to find me and didn't, they were doing something seriously wrong. Why have a cell glued to my hand at all times? Why be one of those obnoxious diners at a restaurant, chatting loudly and annoyingly, ruining the meal of all around? Why be one of the tons of drivers out there making the roads unsafe for us all? Why add another bill to the heap I already have?
The kiddos at work (early 20's, y'all) have told me time and again that I need to get a cell. Pronto. Of course I laughed at this--Just another way for them to track me down and get me to work on my off days? No, thanks.
John is currently pursuing options for some sort of vocational program that will allow him to enter the workforce again after all of these years of being a stay-at-home-dad. And we all know I work more hours than God. And then there is school. Just the other day, I was pulling my hair out while trying to read the most dull crap I have ever read in my life while the boys were rough-housing. I couldn't concentrate, and so I was about to head to Starbucks and use their wifi to get some school work done in peace. But I was waiting on a phone call and needed to stay home And then there is the fact that it is the middle of May (yeah, it is, even though the weather makes it feel more like October or November). This means John will be taking out his Harley more and more, and I am plagued with dread that he will end up smeared on the concrete and nobody will know to where or whom he belongs.

So I stopped at Sprint. Just to look. And price. And they said the magic words: I get a 25% hospital employee discount. Damn.

I told the guy that I was cell-phone-retarded, that because of my busy lifestyle, I wanted something with some features that would help me manage, but I didn't want something so fancy that I wouldn't be able to use it.
His solution? Android smart phones for everybody. I didn't even know how to turn the damned thing on. I had to go back and get a little tutorial to even be able to perform basic functions. And text? Pffft. We don't need text. My plan has unlimited text and data so I wouldn't get any surprises at bill time, but I never dreamed we would use it. Boy, was I wrong. John texted me 62 times last night while I was at work. That isn't a number I pulled out of the air. That is really the number it has on my call log. Really. 62. Plus 4 missed calls.

So I have gone and done it this time. I joined the 21st century. The Sprint dude made it up to me though. We have the same phones, so I told him to make them stand apart from each other so there is no "oops, I grabbed the wrong phone". And boy, did he ever. John's is gray with a black clip. Mine? Ha! Metallic purple with the most obnoxiously pink hard case ever. And I showed up at work. And my boss seemed really excited to see me with a phone in my hand. (Gee, wonder why?) And my coworkers were amazed. As in, "Is that ANDREA with a CELLPHONE????"
I never dreamed I would fall. That's it now. I was the last one. Now everybody has them.

PS- I figured more of the phone out and am now a tweeting, status-updating, e-mail checking, texting, Angry-Birds-playing Professional.