Celling the Drama

As I have been busy in the past fortnight, traveling to and fro, (and other, more specific locales), I'll admit that it has been hard to communicate with me. You see, direct confrontation is right out, unless you too got to enjoy the way of wayward flight connections, hotel lobby encounters, and the dreaded middle seat syndrome. E-mail, while readily accessible at local Starbucks across this nation, would require me to 1) be willing to pay for their wireless access and 2) actually like to drink the coffee. And as the blog has also been living the life sporadic, even comments may not get to me the day of posting. Crazier methods, such as carrier pigeons and airplane skywriting aren't going to work either. (Being 18,000 feet above either will render them null and void.) Which only leave one alternate method...

My cell phone.

Wireless telecommunications have come a long way in recent years. Aside from providing the simple call and answer protocol, the cell phones of today can do much, much more. They store phone numbers, allowing people to no longer have any idea who to call when they find themselves in an emergency sans cell. They take pictures, so that if you cannot convince the guy on the line of something you're seeing, you can forgo additional persuasion and just snap and send. ("See! I told you I saw three BMWs wrecked on Gallows Rd. Zing!!!") Cell phones can come with screens, with more colors than a box of crayons (yes, even burnt sienna). Instant messaging, surfing the web, heck, even streaming video is a possibility for you, for the small price of a 3-yr. subscription lockdown contract. Does Condon enjoy these luxuries with his cellular device?

Heck, no.

It's not that I do not have the opportunity to have one of these top-notch devices. At any given time on any given day I could drive on down to my local Verizon dealer and get such a phone. Heck, my good friend Joe Brescia goes through phones faster than boxes of cereal, I'm sure he's got one he could sell me for a low, low price if I really wanted. But no, I refrain from such purchases. And why is that? Because I've got a cell phone. And until it goes to the big telecom provider in the sky, I'm sticking with it.

My phone, despite the picture I am painting, is farther along on the technological timeline than you may be envisioning. My phone is not a Zack Morris model, where its height matches the length of my forearm, hard rubber antenna excluded. Nor does it come in a leather bag that weighs more than most bowling balls. I'm even beyond the age of the brick, where the only pocket that could possibly contain it is that belonging to a kangaroo. See, I'm not holding on to the past. Just the marginally functional.

The number one problem with my Kyocera is that it forces me to operate in the blind. Why? Because the light blue display only works some of the time. If the cell phones of the world were a baseball team, I've got the backup centerfielder who's lucky to pinch run for the pitcher. It's pretty hit or miss whether or not I get to see what's on my cell phone's screen. But that's just a training mechanism for the user, or so I've rationalized.

My phone has been dropped, kicked, thrown, caught, bounced, skipped, drowned, shattered, washed, and dried. But like a prize fighter, it still works. Sure, I lose signal every now and then, but then that just puts me on par with any normally functioning Cingular phone, right? And because of its durability, I have yet to exchange it. So, next time I go on a interstate vacation or business trip, now you know what kind of equipment I'm operating on.

Oh, I almost forgot that when the display is working, I've got a banner that will never go out of style. Yep, you guessed it.

You're a Phone.