Broken Cell Phone Blues

My cell phone has been broken for several weeks, and by broken I mean it doesn't have the ability to ring or vibrate when I receive calls. Which pretty much defeats the purpose of a phone I think, unless you just want to dial out and see missed calls.

In addition, my phone book wasn't working so unless I knew your number by heart (which is unlikely since I know only about four numbers by heart), I couldn't call you.

On Saturday I dragged Jen with me to the T-Mobile store where I was informed that it appeared to be beyond repair and was 24 days past warranty.

Sweet.

I'd have to either sign a new two-year contract for a new one or buy a new phone out of pocket. So I came home and commenced to tossing it around and destroying it while I debated what to do. (See video.)

A few hours later I decided I had to have another phone - even though for weeks I didn't even notice it didn't ring - and went back to the store. Then I hated all of the new phones.

Defeated, I asked T-Mobile Mark if it could just be fixed. Ol' Mark half-heartedly gave my phone a look-see, pushed some buttons, changed some settings and tried calling it.

It rang.

"Holy crap, Mark! What'd you do?!" I exclaimed. "Why didn't you do that earlier!"

Mark wasn't sure what he did exactly but it had something to do with the blah-blah-blah card and the blah-blah-blah. We tried again. It didn't work.

Damn.

He flipped a few more things around and then performed a "master reset," which sounded scary and caused me to lose my email contacts and photos. We called the phone again. It rang! And my phone book started working again!

Excited but wanting outside confirmation, I had to call five different people before I found someone to call me back. Paul was in the mall and out of touch. Jen was walking around my neighborhood and didn't hear her phone ringing. Kari didn't answer her phone either.

When I called Ronson, I could hear him but he couldn't hear me.

"Hello? Hello? I can't hear you," he said. "Are you there? My phone is broken. I might not be able to talk to you. Are you there?"

Funny. We both have broken cell phones, I thought as I hung up.

Finally I got in touch with my mom, and my phone rang again. Victory! Though something told me Mark was less-than thrilled that his half-hearted attempt to fix it actually worked and he didn't get to sell me a new contract or phone.

So far so good, though I'm skeptical of how long this will last. But for now if you call me, I might actually answer since it rings again.

Of course now it's all beat up from throwing it around my house and accidentally dropping it onto the concrete four times at Maribelle's.

What's sad - and the point of this long winded tale - is that in the "master reset" I lost my home-made Sister Christian ringtone, which I spent two hours (more like four) making one afternoon last winter.

R.I.P. Sister Christian ringtone.