Meet Me at the Corner

“You should write a blog about your cell phone company waking you up in the middle of the night,”
my son-in-law, Robert, suggested. I was in Massachusetts this past weekend, visiting the family, and he thought it was funny that someone at Sprint has started pestering me with unwanted messages on my cell phone. He also likes the idea that his mother-in-law is a blogger so offers suggestions for topics from time to time.

I didn’t think my Community Now readers would care much about my irritation with my very own cell phone and, besides, I hadn’t brought along the secret code that allows me to post a blog.

But now I’m home, and the people at Sprint are still after me. I’d give them an earful, but when I reply to the perpetuator of various picture, text and voice messages, I just get a disembodied voice that wants to tell me about a new useful feature they think I can’t live without. Last night in a dream I was telling someone at Sprint off in no uncertain terms, but then I apologized, realizing that the sweet-looking recipient of my vituperation was just a customer service person and it wasn’t really her fault.

So far I haven’t seen one of those yellow “Dummy” books directed to cell phone users. Normally, I don't even page through those books, because I find the titles demeaning. Still. . . my very own cell phone continues to mystify me. That’s why, when it started playing a silly tune at 11 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, I wasn’t even sure it was my little phone making all that racket. I have it set to a moderate ring – and since I almost never give out my cell phone number, I had no reason to expect a call.

It was the third time someone had been trying to send me pictures. Pictures! I don’t need pictures on that square inch of monitor, and the few times I’ve accidentally activated the camera, all I got were pictures of the kitchen counter or someone’s feet. Like many other people my age who enter the digital age in small increments, and balking, I use my cell phone mostly for emergencies and while on the road, though occasionally now I’ll call one of my long distance friends and relatives just to take advantage of my free weekend minutes.

I’ve had my sleek, black cell phone for a little over a year – a birthday gift from my son Matt who took me as an “add-on” to his own phone and promised to pay the bills. Well, you know that saying about not being able to look a gift horse in the mouth – in this case, a gift cell phone in the key pad. I sometimes actually like it, though I haven’t figured out all of its possibilities.

And it certainly never dawned on me that if the ringer volume is set to receive calls, that my very own cell phone company, not subject to the “Do Not Call” list of land-line phone service, would pester me with musical tunes to get my attention in the middle of the night.

Even though my daughter has turned picture and text messaging to an unobtrusive vibrate, those Sprint people are still after me.

I think I’ll suggest to Matt that we switch to Verizon.