Cell phones!

[auto-da-fey]

I need to have a new phone plan by the end of the month or I lose my number. Since I've put this off for an entire month and am having trouble getting motivated to do anything about it today, I had the following trail of thoughts:

1. why should I care about keeping my number? I haven't lived in Minnesota since 2001; my friends can handle updating my number, and I don't care if anyone who's not a friend can't get a hold of me

2. wait, why do I need a phone at all? I mostly hate phone conversations anyway, and this'll preclude the weekly calls from my mother asking if G and I might get back together.

so I'm kind of thinking of going off the telecommunications grid, at least temporarily. I'm doing a quick mental scan to see if there are any important factors I'm missing, but I can't come up with any. I guess if there are family tragedies no one will be able to reach me, but I live over 1000 miles from any family anyway, so it's not like I can rush over. Email will suffice. I don't have any live job applications, and I haven't been having much phone-sex lately.

Anything else I should consider?

[diesel_powered]

I dunno, emergencies?

[elpollodiablo]

Not being a bum

[Greg Nog]

DROP THE PHONE AND BECOME A PART OF THE ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH!  DILUTE!  DILUTE!  OK!

[FreddyKnuckles]

do you have a little brother who will get constant phone calls from your parents whining about how hard it is to get in touch with you?

[auto-da-fey]

actually, yeah. that's kind of a sadistic perk. bumhood I can handle.

emergencies are why I first got a cell phone, while driving around the country in 2004, and I haven't really had a meaningful one yet. which does about guarantee that three days from now I'll be stranded in Camden and ruing this moment.

[Greg Nog]

When I didn't have a cell phone (up until November), I found that I could get by equally well with just a calling-card number memorized; there's always a payphone nearby.

[donblood]

Yeah, whenever people say PAYPHONES LOL I say (1) the subway and (2) people like my weird ol' buddies Nog and Mike K and Brian and Jill and...

[elpollodiablo]

I pay like fifty bucks a month so I don't have to put my face up to one of those fuckin things

[donblood]

Purell and tissues are cheaper than that.  You could also get rubber gloves and a facemask for when you leave your apartment.  Also irradiate your hands immediately after exiting any kind of public transport.

[Greg Nog]

I basically go with the option where I have a working immune system.

[elpollodiablo]

[diesel_powered]

actually, yeah. that's kind of a sadistic perk. bumhood I can handle.

emergencies are why I first got a cell phone, while driving around the country in 2004, and I haven't really had a meaningful one yet. which does about guarantee that three days from now I'll be stranded in Camden and ruing this moment.

Y'know, you could just blow $50 on a disposable phone to keep around for emergencies.

[elpollodiablo]

Or use the shitphone

[Greg Nog]

Dude if you think that payphone pic is going to disgust me you have not seen some of the things i eat or the floors off of which i eat them

[Andrew_TSKS]

That phone pic makes me laugh. So, what, it's dirty? It's near a construction site?

[Maaik]

I just pictured Greg immediately stuffing the earpiece in his mouth like a toddler.

[elpollodiablo]

It's just on 23rd st

[FreddyKnuckles]

sometimes you colon's gotta call home

[donblood]

Or use the shitphone

A shit-leopard can't change it's spots.

[Bernard]

Lose the phone. I wish I could lose mine. I fear it would just make the email abuse worse.

[clare]

I like how it's all the blokes who are "eew, that phone is dirty". Aren't payphones still really common in the US? Here you could walk for blocks and not find one, cos at some point our last government decided that they were contributing to 'the drug problem' and they cost money to maintain.

[donblood]

Aren't payphones still really common in the US? Here you could walk for blocks and not find one, cos at some point our last government decided that they were contributing to 'the drug problem' and they cost money to maintain.

They are common, yes, because we like our drug problem.

[clare]

The irony is that I think fixed phone connections are probably cheaper for you folks than here (or at least you get free local calls). Mobile (cell) phones here are pretty expensive, but the cost is split between the caller and the recipient (unlike in the US where the phone owner pays the lot) So the removal of most of the public phones around is kind of scary if you're poor.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Your comment about removal of pay phones because of the drug problem is definitely true in some places, though. They did that in a bunch of the poorer areas of Richmond back in the late 90s, and it was exactly in some of the neighborhoods where people relied on payphone access the most. There were articles in the paper about what a problem it caused for people.

And actually, a lot of the payphones even in my area of the city have slowly been removed over the years. It's way harder to find one now than it was 10 years ago.