Can I Hear You Now?

Not this past September but the September before, Tim and I renewed our cell phone contract with Altell. In doing so we signed a two year contract which enabled us to get two new phones for free, with the small catch that we could not get any more discounts on phones for another two years. Ok, sounded good to us. What phone wouldn't last two years, but just to be on the safe side we both insured our phones. Eight months later we decided to drop the costly insurance because, really, who needs insurance, and there is that pesky deductible anyway. Not two weeks after we canceled the insurance my snazzy flip phone developed a crack in the plastic around the hinge... no big deal...it still works fine. Right? Yeah no big deal. Well the crack steadily grew till a whole hunk of plastic fell off, still no big deal, the top just wiggles up and down. Right? Sure, no big deal. A week ago the inner light stopped working...Big deal this time. Yep big deal. I no longer could search through my address book, find missed calls etc. without holding the phone up at a peculiar angle looking only slightly mad. Now all I needed to do was start batting at imaginary flies. I started bugging my dear husband to find our old (dare I say antique, maybe just vintage, yes vintage) phone, so that I no longer had to put up with this evil machine. Yesterday was the final straw. I woke up and the world seemed normal. I picked up my phone...dialed the desired #, waited to hear ringing on the other end...nothing. I held the phone out and the aforementioned peculiar angle and looked...yes the call had been placed. I end the call and dial again...still nothing. Hmm, maybe its the other person's phone (not likely I'm the one with the gimpy phone). I call Tim, still nothing. Hmmm, whatever can I do? (Light bulb) Speaker phone! Yes, use the speaker phone...Ahh I hear voices and not in my head, but coming from my phone. This time I immediately call Tim (on speaker phone) and inform him that this will NOT due. I will need a new phone and soon. If he would not find our vintage phone I would trot over to Altell and buy a new one. ( Big threat he knows how tight I am.) When he arrived home from work he not only found the phone, but called Altell and transfered the service and charged the battery for me. What a sweet man. So now call away I am back in business!