My Cell Phones

I've always been intrigued by cell phones. The first ones I remember were those big squarish looking things that some utility workers carried back in the day. I wouldn't have even considered buying one. I'm not sure they were even available to the general public back then.

As cell phones developed and became more commonplace I had a friend who had one mounted in his truck. I thought that was pretty neat but never bothered to ask him how much it cost. They were still in their infancy so probably pretty expensive. He was fairly well off.

They were rare enough, though, that they were kind of a status symbol. I recall the J.C. Whitney auto catalog offering phony cell phones for cars. It's not that you have a cell phone, I told a customer back then who owned one. It's that people think you have one. She didn't get it.

But I was still intrigued, and back around the mid to late 90s there was a pad of paper on the counter at the Eureka Mailboxes Etc. It said, "Want a free cell phone? Enter here". Hey, I'm all about drawings and sweepstakes so what the heck. I filled out my contact info and put it in the box.

A week or so later I get a phone call. It was from U.S. Cellular saying they were giving away cell phones down at Victoria Place. I drove down there. They had a table with a sign out in the grass area by Carl's Jr.

I guess I was snookered, but maybe I didn't actually pay for the phone. It was one of those deals where they give you the phone if you sign up for two years service. $29.99 for 30 minutes a month of talk time. $1.00 a minute if you went over. And I believe they had an "activation charge", or some such, of $25 or $50.00. Maybe I did pay for the phone?

They had two phones available. A squarish flip phone and a Motorola bag phone. I chose the bag phone and signed their contract. Didn't seem as expensive as I'd expected and I had what might be a fun, new toy.

Kept that phone on the hump between the seats of my work truck but rarely used it. It did save us big time once as we were heading back from UCSF after a snafu of sorts. We got a call just south of Healdsburg so turned around and went back. If we hadn't had that phone, we would have driven all the way back to Eureka and then have to drive back to UCSF again. Close one.

Other than that, there it sat in my truck. After my contract was up I called U.S. Cellular to cancel. It just wasn't worth $33ish a month- $29.99 + various fees and taxes. I explained it to the customer service gal. She recommended switching to their Safety Plus plan. That was $9.99 for 10 minutes a month. Enough so you could call a tow truck or 911 if needed, but much less in cost. That was good enough for me.

I was on that plan for maybe ten years. I rarely used that phone but loved having it available. It did kinda bug me that when I did use it I'd have to be quick. I'd want to save as much time as possible so I tried to make phone calls really short. Drove me nuts when I'd call some business to check on a part I ordered, only to be put on hold! I tried to make a point of using my home phone whenever possible.

Some years ago U.S. Cellular sent me a letter saying they'd no longer be supporting analog phones. My bag phone was analog. I wasn't too worried as that didn't mean the phone wouldn't work. You just didn't get help with the phone if there was a problem. 

Shortly after that I won two higher end phones (for the time) in some online sweepstakes. An LG that was pretty much a Verizon phone. I gave that to a nephew. And a Motorola razur phone that seemed to be a U.S. Cellular one. There was U.S. Cellular on the box and everywhere else on that thing. With the support cut-off looming, I went down to U.S. Cellular to have them activate that phone for me.

The sales girl was impressed with the phone I'd won. She also told me that wasn't one of "their" phones as it wasn't on her computer's list of U.S. Cellular phones. She said she could still activate it for me, anyway, so I had her go ahead.

As I left she gave me a sheet with the plans they offered. Only two of them, though: $45 a month for 500 minutes, which surprised me as I thought 1000 minutes was the norm at the time from what I'd seen on TV. Guess not. Didn't matter as I wasn't happy paying $33 a month for something I rarely used. I certainly wasn't going to pay $45. 

Their other plan got more of my attention. It was the "Pay As You Go" plan, and similar to Tracfone's system. 

Some months earlier I'd expressed on this blog my frustration with paying even $13 a month for something I rarely used. One reader mentioned Tracfone and described how it worked. That had me intrigued. You paid around $7 a month, 60 minutes renewable after 3 months, and you got to keep unused minutes.

This second plan was close, but not good enough. You'd pay $6.00 a month just so they knew who you were- no call time. Then you'd buy your time. Looking at the figures, at $.15 per minute (same as Tracfone), I could buy 20 minutes for about the same as I was paying now for 10. One problem with their plan was you couldn't keep unused minutes. You started new with a blank balance each month.

After about 3 months I decided I'd try the Pay As You Go plan, buy 20 minutes a month and see if I felt any less pushed about saving time when using the phone. I didn't think I would, but went down to the office to change plans anyway.

Got down there and you could tell the guy wasn't happy with Pay As You Go. They want to sell regular monthly contracts. He went along until I said I'd start out with 20 minutes. That's when he told me I had to buy time in $5.00 increments. That's around 40 minutes and would be more than I was already paying for time I wasn't likely to use.

That was the deal breaker. Never mind I couldn't keep unused minutes.  I wasn't trying to hard ball the guy and be a tough sale. This just wasn't gonna work for me. I told him to cancel my account. He said he couldn't and I'd have to call Customer Service. He gave me a 1-800 number. Tracfone, here I come!

On my way home I stopped by Rite- Aid and bought a $10.00 Kyocera Tracfone. Got home and activated it. Then I called USC Customer Service and had a very pleasant talk with the gal. She didn't try to talk me out of it after I explained my situation. She just said, "We don't have the plan for everyone". Very pleasant lady.

I hated that Tracfone, though. Dinky little thing. Way too small, but at least I had a phone and could keep unused minutes. The plan I was on then I'm still on now, except my current phone has double minutes for life. You sign up for three months for around $20.00 with 60 minutes time. So long as you keep your account current by renewing $20.00 every three months, your unused minutes just keep piling up to be used later.

But I hated that phone. Small gray scale viewscreen and too small for my hands. Still, I'd only use it once or twice every three months so that shouldn't be too big a deal.

I finally got fed up with the dinky Kyocera. Bought a flip phone for under $20.00 and gave the Kyocera to the wife. Flip phone was better, but had the same, albeit larger, gray scale view screen. I used that phone for a couple years until it didn't seem to be fully charging. I'd stick it in the charger. It would say it was charged but the battery indicator showed it wasn't.

Time for a new phone. No sense in buying just another battery. I was glad I did. This time I went to Radio Shack hoping for a better selection. They had four Tracfones. The sales guy was trying to talk me into one that cost around $50.00. I was interested since it had a bigger viewscreen and I wanted to be able to check doppler radar on occasion. It also had a camera. He just kept talking about texting.

He says, "If you like texting, this is the one for you". It didn't help that I told him I knew next to nothing about texting, never done it in my life and had no plans to. He kept talking about texting. I finally told him I'd take it, more for the slightly larger view screen than anything else. 

He went to activate it for me, but the manager came over and said he did it wrong and I wouldn't be able to keep my saved minutes. Manager said we couldn't start the activation process over and to go get another phone from the back. The guy goes to the back room, comes back and says they didn't have any of that particular model left. 

Oh well. I went back to the display rack and picked the next lowest priced one. It was an LG221(?) that wasn't all that much different from the one I'd just gotten rid of except for color view screen and browser capabilities. No camera, but I'd forgotten about that by then. One big plus I hadn't paid much attention to was this phone has double minutes for life. So, instead of getting just 60 minutes every three months, I get 120 for the same price.

I went home and put more time on that cell phone in the first week or two than I probably had all my other ones combined. That sales guy talking about texting actually embedded that in my mind so I played with that to figure it out. Then I tried the browser and figured that out. I've since realized it's not worth paying extra for browser capabilities with a view screen that small. The screen is too small to use for that.

And that's the one I have to this day. I'm not sure what I'd want to get when this one gets old and worn out. I'm not one that likes the smartphone design, although I would like to have browser capabilities for special occasions. I'm certainly no cellphone fanatic, either, as mine is turned off nearly all day long. I just turn it on once a day to check for any messages or to pester others with annoying text messages. That's about it.

I know of at least one fellow who had a cell phone, tossed it and proudly proclaimed himself cell phone free. I think he's wrong, but each to their own. He certainly didn't need to pay $45 a month as he had been, but they are nice to have at certain times and you shouldn't have to pay anywhere near that much. 

I rarely use mine, but it's really saved me some hassle and misery now and again. For instance, the wife had a cold once and asked me to stop by the Co-Op for some herbal tea. She rattled off some names but, by the time I got there I'd forgotten them. None of the names on the shelf rang a bell so I called her on my cell phone. Problem solved.

I believe it was last summer I was going to a get together for old National Guard guys. It was at the Elk's Lodge. There's hundreds of people there when I arrived, and none that I recognized. I went inside and a lady at the entrance said she knew nothing about a National Guard meeting. 

I figured I had the wrong place. Maybe it was at the Moose Lodge? I called the guy who set up the event on my cellphone. He called back right away and said I was in the right place (all those other people were from an Elk's function). Great. Wouldn't have stuck around if not for my cell phone.

 For only around $7.00 a month, I wouldn't want to be without one.