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Our phone, the one we bought six years ago when we moved in, has finally died after years of being pulled down from its home on the shelf above the computer and crashing against the desk because the cord's always tangled. So today we went to shop for a new one. Old one was simple; had a cord, no answerphone, you picked it up, punched numbers and spoke to people.
Things have changed. That sort of phone with an answerphone inside it, is now $20, even though a separate answerphone is $25. Umm, whatever.
It's all about the cordless now.We don't have a mobile phone; sorry, is that passe? A cell phone? Whatever. A wafer thin mint phone. Don't have one, sometimes feel the need, put off by the complex plans and the fact that I'd want to buy the damn thing and pay for what I used after I used it, no more, no less. Cards that run out after three months even if I didn't use them? What the hell? Plans that cost $30 a month and I might not use it? Forget it.
Anyway. Bewildering variety of phones. My best friend swore she'd beat me about the head if I went any longer without getting an answerphone; told her that she should go and buy a computer instead as an email will get my attention approximately three second after it arrives but she doesn't like computers. So we looked at phones with them in. Went for the 2.4 Ghz one as a middle of the road type. David had a stern talk with the chap about lithium batteries as he knows about all that, building space ships as he does, and we picked out a pretty silver one. For $200. Yep, ten times as much as the lonely unwanted corded one.
Ten times. So what do you get? A phone that's been charging for 6 hours and still doesn't quite seem to want to let me communicate with the world. A phone with a battery that will run down. No, that _has_ to be run down (we paid extra for a model that you can also use as a something or other (jargon overload) so we won't be phoneless). You can't use the phone and put it back. Or not often. Sometimes you can and technically this battery doesn't have a memory (a memory? Batteries became sentient life forms and no one _told_ me?). I gave the salesman a piercing glance and said, 'You mean this battery wants to be pampered?' and he laughed. I didn't.
All this so I can walk and talk.
Sheesh.
Things have changed. That sort of phone with an answerphone inside it, is now $20, even though a separate answerphone is $25. Umm, whatever.
It's all about the cordless now.We don't have a mobile phone; sorry, is that passe? A cell phone? Whatever. A wafer thin mint phone. Don't have one, sometimes feel the need, put off by the complex plans and the fact that I'd want to buy the damn thing and pay for what I used after I used it, no more, no less. Cards that run out after three months even if I didn't use them? What the hell? Plans that cost $30 a month and I might not use it? Forget it.
Anyway. Bewildering variety of phones. My best friend swore she'd beat me about the head if I went any longer without getting an answerphone; told her that she should go and buy a computer instead as an email will get my attention approximately three second after it arrives but she doesn't like computers. So we looked at phones with them in. Went for the 2.4 Ghz one as a middle of the road type. David had a stern talk with the chap about lithium batteries as he knows about all that, building space ships as he does, and we picked out a pretty silver one. For $200. Yep, ten times as much as the lonely unwanted corded one.
Ten times. So what do you get? A phone that's been charging for 6 hours and still doesn't quite seem to want to let me communicate with the world. A phone with a battery that will run down. No, that _has_ to be run down (we paid extra for a model that you can also use as a something or other (jargon overload) so we won't be phoneless). You can't use the phone and put it back. Or not often. Sometimes you can and technically this battery doesn't have a memory (a memory? Batteries became sentient life forms and no one _told_ me?). I gave the salesman a piercing glance and said, 'You mean this battery wants to be pampered?' and he laughed. I didn't.
All this so I can walk and talk.
Sheesh.
