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Jewish World Review May 5, 2004 / 14 Iyar, 5764

James Lileks

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Consumer Reports

New cell phone does everything, but there's a problem...


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | A cold, miserable weekend afternoon. I was heading into the electronics store to buy a radio for my wife's new home office. Near the door was a tent emblazoned with a cell-phone company logo; a fellow was standing by a display, shivering slightly in the wind. I thought: Who decides to change their cell service because they see a guy at a card table outside the stereo store? Who wants to stand outside in 45-degree weather and rejigger their roaming options?

Then I realized: You know, I need to rejigger my roaming options.

So I went over to chat. Imagine my surprise: They were running a special offer. See this phone? This tiny, shiny phone? Normally, it would cost $250, but today they'd rebate all but $75 if I signed up. Why, you're practically losing money if you don't do it. And look at this phone -- so tiny that you can carry it in your mouth and spit it out when you want to talk. What are you using now? A Nokia 7300? Man, you might as well carry a trombone case in your pocket. We've had reports of people who lean to one side permanently because they're carrying around that brick. Permanently. The battery is powered by a small black hole, that's why it's so heavy. Look at this phone! It takes pictures. It plays games. You can download annoying ring tones such as "Bolero." The entire tune! We're the only carrier who offers an eleven-minute ring tone. Also, look at this: Press Star-66, and it's a Taser. Shoots immobilizing electrical wires. That'll decrease your battery life, depending on the severity of the shock, but these new phones charge back fast. And! Here's a special GPS upgrade. Push this button, and it'll tell you where you are. Watch: I push Star ??, and . . . OK, no carrier, but if this wasn't a dead zone it would say we were standing in a parking lot in Edina, give or take 6 feet.

Well, he didn't say any of that, but it was running through my head as I convinced myself. It was time to rejoin the cell-phone world. I have one, but I hate it. It's big and ugly and so 2001. My wife uses it now -- and it's odd when she calls from the road, and I see my name come up on Caller ID. Question to the cell-phone salesguy: Could we transfer the number to her so it shows up on Caller ID, get new phones for both of us? But of course -- all is possible in this brave new world!

And so my troubles began.

First we had to add my wife, then join a family plan, then cancel me, then transfer the number, then add me, then smear chicken guts on the computer monitor and pray to Zeus, or something. It was quite complex. The fellow who set me up was an absolute whiz, though, typing the equivalent of a 60,000-word novel. After half an hour: Done! One problem: They were out of the phones.

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But! They had them at another store. The guy who'd been manning the card table offered to go get them. What a fine gent, I thought. An hour later we met again; the phones were activated, calls were made to the head office. Then we hit the mother of all deal-killers: T-mobile wouldn't let different names come up on Caller ID. No matter how many phones you had, they'd all come up with my name. Or my wife's, if she was the primary name on the account.

I'm going to have my wife's name come up when I call someone? I should also wear a dress and pumps and maybe a nice pearl necklace? Hello? Compromise: Both our names come up. Given the length of her name, this meant the displays would say WIFE MCWIFEWIFE AND JAM. I wouldn't even get JAMES. Just JAM. Or perhaps JA.

Maddening. Unacceptable. So after three boring hours, I now have a new cell plan that's twice the cost of the previous one, and doesn't have accurate Caller ID, and I just found this out after signing a 40-year contract that gives them my house and my immortal soul if I cancel prematurely. Great! Fine! Here's a letter opener -- stab me in the buttocks, and make this day even better! The clerk was apologetic, said he thought T-Mobile could handle something as daring and difficult as different Caller ID for different numbers. Verizon could do it, he said.

But -- I'm -- not -- with Verizon. I'm with the one that has that scrumptious Catherine Zeta-Jones in the ads. And she always looks so happy. Compare and contrast.

His verdict: We could cancel everything we did, take back the phones, buy new phones, turn around three times, shout GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY into a coffee can, bury a toad's jawbone at midnight, and start again. Now get this: Verizon's phones were nearly identical. Same manufacturer, same model, no real difference. They were cheaper, too: $79.99 instead of $225. And the rebate was $80. I would actually make a penny. And! There was an in-store promotion that paid me $50 for each phone, meaning I'd make $100.02 on the deal.

The mind swims. This is when you realize that they're making it all up. The phones probably cost a dime to make. This whole rebate thing is an utter scam. I would have done it all right there, but I was late for supper. So I used the store's cell phone to call home. First time I've had to make a cell-phone call in a month, and it's to tell my wife I'm late because I'm buying a cell phone.

Went back the next day. Another hour of typing. An additional half-hour of typing to exchange the old phones for the new ones. New problem: Turns out the inventory computers were wrong. The store didn't have the phones. But another store did. This time no one offered to go get them. Off I went. Got the phones. Goes without saying that I set off the security system when I left the store.

And so I was able to surprise my wife with a new phone that had her Caller ID, and all was well. At last.

That's great, she said. And then she gave me a quizzical look:

"Didn't you go there to get a new radio?"


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JWR contributor James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Comment by clicking here.

Up

04/29/04: John Kerry, prisoner of symbolic politics
04/22/04: Shall we grovel? Kerry Plan to Restore America's Place in the World
04/08/04: Sept. 11 Might Have Been Different If ...
04/02/04: Slinging slime or citing facts?
03/26/04: One War, One Enemy
03/22/04: Bloodied Spain Rejoins Old Europe
03/12/04: Why All Those Foreign Leaders Want Kerry to Whup Bush
03/08/04: Introducing the Kerry Doctrine
02/27/04: Introducing the AWOLs: Angry White Outraged Libs
02/20/04: Sifting the headlines of election year 1992
02/18/04: Guess Which Candidate Our Enemies Want to Lose in 2004?
01/29/04: Every Laptop a Truth Squad
01/27/04: When the battle over artistic freedom goes over the edge
12/31/03: For the Left and Right, Some New Year's Resolutions
12/22/03: Dean's black helicopters
12/15/03: Dems Are Mainstreaming the Extreme
12/08/03: Does Dean Really Want to Be President? One Wonders, When He Opens His Mouth
11/24/03: The real story: Most Brits see U.S. as force for good
11/19/03: The Trouble With Al Gore's Screed on Civil Liberties
11/11/03: Can a fellow win with the Confederate Metrosexual vote?
10/22/03: Let's make Greenpeace pay
09/29/03: Ah-nold & Clark may be on different sides of the aisles, but their supporters are cut from the same cloth
09/19/03: All Hail the Ninth Circuit Court of Surreal
08/26/03: This time, the record industry doesn't stand a chance!
08/18/03: Assessing the Schwarzenegger Factor in Republicanism
08/08/03: No wonder Howard ‘Two Covers’ Dean gets all the buzz
08/04/03: Expect bad news for the foreseeable future
07/28/03: Despot's Deserts
07/21/03: No winners in this game of gotcha
07/14/03: Doing the right thing in Liberia may not be the right thing to do
06/27/03: On feet in Democratic mouths
06/16/03: The real story behind Hillary's book
06/09/03:America's new mission was and remains: Extirpating the flaming nutballs and the societies that nurture them
06/03/03: The Constitution as gag order
05/23/03: Sometimes the theme of world events is chaos itself
05/16/03: Newspapers are only human, after all
05/13/03: What McCarthy messed up
05/06/03: Still think the International Criminal Court was a good idea?
04/03/03: The world is ending, the world is ending! Doesn't anybody care!? Why won't anybody listen!?
03/14/03: Kerry and the Dems are banking on American electorate's tendancy to forget history
02/28/03: Roadmap to peace?
02/13/03: We live in an age where the poet has been cast out from the halls of power --- sob, sob
02/10/03: Found: League for International Justice and Peace talking points
01/30/03: The US can go to war whenever it likes for its own reasons, and all the UN can do is pass more worthless paper
01/23/03: People who'd volunteer for the Iraqi army if they saw Saddam wearing a "Free Mumia" button
01/16/03: One of those head vs. heart things
12/27/02: Whistleblowers?
01/06/02: The second year of this jangled millennium
11/16/01: Attack of the 'Patriotism police' and other Hollywood fare
11/12/01: From the bleats of dismay
10/30/01: Osama and the Genie
10/08/01: "We can stop the Bush Death Juggernaut"
11/04/01: America, loathe or it leave it
09/25/01: Do the Europeans actually think that the war on murderous zealotry will be furthered by undercutting America?
08/27/01: If the economy is in a funk, why aren't we dancing?
08/14/01: Dubyah's embarrassing presidential vacation
08/10/01: Hail to our co-chiefs?
08/03/01: Constitution: George the Uniter picked a doozy to unify detractors
07/25/01: The real reason why we need missile defense (What those uppity policy wonks won't tell you!)
06/18/01: Paining the egalitarian soul
06/01/01: One of the stranger indexes you'll ever hear about
05/21/01: One man's toke is another man's snort
05/08/01: Republicans want poisoned water
04/23/01: We bleat as we're sheared
04/10/01: Boys will be boys. And that's the problem
04/06/01: Pity the anti-American Left, they're gonna have a hard time on this one
03/26/01: You've been warned
03/16/01: The GOP's inexplicable desire to fold
02/23/01: Will the Jeb Bush administration attack Saddam in 2011?
02/09/01: In search of the the first ashtray thrown by a member of the First Family
02/06/01: Can you say 'Ayatollah Bush'?
01/24/01: The new Executive Orders
01/22/01: Hey, Dubya: Wanna save Ashcroft? Teach him to rap!
01/09/01: Bubba gets his last licks
01/05/01: The low-down on the coming recession (What those snooty economists won't tell you)
12/23/00: Memo to Dubya: Wanna show who is boss? Nuke 'em!
12/06/00: The Count of Carthage
At the Sore/Loserman Transition HQ
12/01/00: The Count of Carthage
11/28/00: Clinton knows history isn't written by the victors anymore
11/17/00: Chad's the word
11/08/00: The strangest political night
11/07/00: Get ready to return to the Dark Ages

© 2003, James Lileks