More Phone Phun
So, the phone is here.

It's so pretty. And fun. And, lest we forget, free.

I was a little wary of the new phone situation, since I ordered it from a website I'd never heard of before. And, because after all the rebates and discounts, the phone should actually earn me $50 above being free. It all sounds too good to be true. I was nervous. All week.

I fear change.

But, the phone arrived at my door nary two days after I ordered it, sooner than promised. Turns out the website is a local company. What a stroke of good fortune!

It came with all promised goodies, undamaged, and so, so very cute. This eased my nerves a bit. I half expected never to see the phone after putting it on my credit card, thus being unable to rebate anything and instead losing money. I have great fears about being taken advantage of financially.

Upon opening the phone, no less than 108 booklets and pamphlets fell out of the box about how to set up the phone, phone features, warranties, and other phone information. It seems it's quite a fancy phone.

I plugged it in and charged it up, trying to read through some of the start up guides on how to activate the phone. I tried to follow several of the steps, noting that a couple of the pamphlets didn't quite say the exact same thing. Confusion began to set in. But, I did not panic.

I grabbed my house phone and called my phone service provider people. I explained that I just bought a new phone and needed to activate my new plan. When the customer service rep asked me if I ordered the phone from them and I had to say 'no', I felt a little guilty, like I was cheating on them. But hey, it was a great deal that they weren't offering. When they offer to give me $50 to change phones, I will get it from them.

The rep began searching for my new plan and discovered that it didn't exist. I still remained calm and pleasant. He was very nice. Then, I noticed something I feared. On the invoice that came with the phone, this random phone supplier company had assigned me a new phone number to go with my new plan, even though I was staying with the same phone service provider.

Oh no .......

I immediately had flashbacks to my SBC troubles earlier this year when switching my house phone from the apartment to my house. I quietly started freaking out. I did not want to go through phone number mayhem again. I just want my old phone number!!

The rep looked up my plan with the new number and said everything seemed to be in place. I then asked if I could have my old phone number, as I didn't want a new number. He said sure, no problem. It would just take a while to migrate/import/teleport/hallucinate the number over to the new plan. Quite awhile, in fact.

Hmm. I asked how long this 'awhile' might be. Days? Weeks? Years?

He said probably as long as an hour.

An hour??? That's not long!! I'm very happy with an hour!!! Bring on the hour!!! If an hour is all it takes to phone number bliss, let the hour begin.

Again the nice phone rep guy said a few things, asked a few questions, got my home number to call me when the number transfer/import/transport/remodification process was over (we all know he just wanted my home number to ask me out), and I hung up with him to wait through the hour of phone uncertainty.

Phone uncertainty is a tricky time. No one knows which of my phones will work. I was actually expecting a call during this time. Would it come to the old phone? Would neither phone work? Would the person remember that I also have a house phone that is usable? It's like a no-man's land of phone. You're kinda cut off from the world, but you're not sure if you are. You know if you make it to the new phone activation without any calls, you're safe. But if someone tries to call during that time but can't get through and can't leave a message, you might as well have stayed on the other side and never tried the new phone experiment at all. You've lost one. They may never try to call again, and hate you for being unreachable.

Never leave a phone friend behind!

To occupy myself during this Hour Of Uncertainty, I began programming numbers into the new phone. I hate this process, but it's also good way to clean out old numbers from people I don't like .... er ... um... don't hear from anymore. Yep. It's a time of organization and spring cleaning. Very productive.

After about twenty minutes, my house phone rang. This was odd. It hadn't been an hour, yet. But the only people who call that number are my parents and my grandmas. I'd just talked to my mom, and my grandmas aren't up that late. Who could this be?

It was Adam. The Phone Guy.

He said my phone number was switched/swapped/merged/changed already. He seemed genuinely surprised that it had only taken twenty minutes, but he was very excited to deliver this news to me. He did a test call on the new phone, and it worked. No problem.

Could this be true? Could I have just bought a phone from a random website, had it delivered earlier than expected, and switched to my new plan without any catastrophes, all on the first try???

It just might be.

I thanked Adam for his help. He didn't ask me out. But really, long distance relationships never work out well, so I'm okay with that. I could tell he wanted to ask, though. He really did.

So, the phone is working out well. I'm in the process of reading through all the material to figure out how to use the phone. It's very phancy. I'm setting up pictures and special ringtones for different people as they call. It's highly entertaining.

I'm as shocked as you are that this has not turned into a fiasco. I'm much less nervous now that I have the phone, it's working, and I'm slowly understanding how to not hang up on people or laugh too hard at the silly ringtones during phone calls of grave importance.

Hopefully, all the rebates go through as promised and I've once again scored a small polyphonic gold mine.

Phree Phones Rock.

C.T.