Nomo Moto!

I remember the day well. It was September 27, 2006. I know this because it was the day that I attended a 14-inning marathon at RFK between the Fightin’ Phils and the Nationals. (Hang on – I probably blogged about it, lemme check. (sifts through YAB’s archival cyberclutter) Yep, here it is.) Now one of the reasons I was able to watch the last few innings mere rows behind Philly’s dugout on a $4 ticket was I wasn’t that far from there in the first place. Sure, I had bought a right field upper deck seat, but as Jon and Shay had vouchers for free best available seats, I ended up just claiming their adjacent vacancy. And pretended I was much smaller than 6’4” every time the usher came around.

But that’s beside the point.

September 27, 2006 also was the final death knell for a cell phone that had been often the topic of YAB hilarity for 15 long months. It had been welcomed to the fold with much fanfare and a very jealous girlfriend named Kyocera in June ’05. And then there was the time (in two parts!) when my phone decided in didn’t have the will to live and jumped from the third story of our apartment building into the gutter. And I warned you all that Moto had become a blind man about a month prior to this Phillies game in a post. And for the few weeks after that, we saw what might be a reprieve in the visual standing of this ailing telecommunications lackey.

If I had the persistence to sit there and flip the phone open ~30 times, I usually could get at least a slanted screen to check messages and such. But in the last week of the MLB season, even that finally quit on me. Why was this baseball game so relevant to the final rites of Moto? Had I had access to my text messaging, I could have let Mattias and his buddy know why I had yet to appear in the upper deck. (Even with a paltry crowd attendance of 21,809, it’s still damn hard to talk on a phone at a baseball game.) Oh well. He found us. Eventually.

I could have gone out that next day and purchased a replacement phone, perhaps the very same silver Motorola RAZR I bought just this past weekend. However, I would have had to buy it with ZERO discount, considering the two years of hell with my current phone still had 7 months on its lease of life. At the time, the full price cost of the RZAR was $239.99.

Saturday, I paid $49.99.

That’s a mighty difference of $190. As anyone who didn’t sleep their way through Microeconomics 101 (ok, that sounded horrible, but funny) can tell you, $190 is the opportunity cost of waiting out my phone for these past seven months. For each month that I did not cave and drive to the nearest Verizon Wireless store, that was another $27 bucks in my pocket. In fact, for every DAY since that baseball game that I didn’t throw my hands up in defeat, I made a little under a dollar in resolve. Is that a just price to pay for the added hardship of a blank-screen cell phone?

That’s loose change, people.It’s not like I was going without a cell phone – I was just without some of the luxuries many of us in the wireless age have come to afford. Like knowing who’s on the other end of the line when you flip that infernal phone open. This only burned me twice. A long-lost guy from growing up pinned me for 40 minutes just prior to my fantasy football draft, and of course, this exchange between yours truly and an unknown female friend sometime last fall:

Chris: Hello?

Julie Viehweg: Hey! I just wanted to call and let you know I’m one of your buildings right now.

Chris: (looks out apartment window, sees no one) Oh really? That’s great! Uhh…which building?

Julie: You’ll never guess!
Chris: I bet you’re right!
Julie: Your building in Anchorage!

(at this point, not only do I have no idea who I’m speaking with, I’m now trying to figure out when I acquired property in Alaska. And for that matter, who I know in Alaska.)

Chris: No way!
Julie: Yeah – I saw the big SAIC sign and figured it might be fun to give you a call.
Chris: I’m really glad you did.
Julie: Ok, well I have to run, I need to make it back to the tournament.(light bulb goes off)

Chris: Best of luck, Julie (??)
Julie: Thanks! Bye!

Whew. Close one.