Why I Need a New Phone

As the end of my first cellphone contract draws near, I am realizing that I need a new phone. If the phone were to break, it could not be replaced, as it is no longer made. There are plenty of great reasons why they broke the mold on this particular model.  Allow me to enumerate just a handful of problems my phone has. Because I don't want to sound repetitive in continually saying "the phone" or "my phone", it will from this point on be referred to as Carl.

#1:  Carl ignores me.

He won't listen to my input.  I try to text "BALANCE" to my bank account, and he sends the message at "BALA".  Then he comes back and tells me that my bank didn't understand my message.  Well, no shit, Carl!  Do as you're told, and this wouldn't happen.

#2: Carl gets hot.
I mean it.  After five minutes of use, he is burning my face or making my hands uncomfortably sweaty.  I don't have time for this Carl.

#3: Carl doesn't last very long.
It doesn't matter whether I charge him for two hours or all night, he will die within six hours of removal from the wall.  You can rest when I say you can rest, you lazy son of a bitch.

#4: Carl doesn't know where the fuck he is half the time.
This isn't exactly Carl's fault, but I cannot find service anywhere.  What is his fault, however, is the fact that when I don't have reception, he won't tell me the time.  Instead, there's a stupid satellite symbol showing me he's working on it.  Is this some kind of sick joke to you, Carl? 


Carl is on his way out.  But what kind of phone to get?  I started looking around on campus to see what kinds of phones other people have.  Much to my surprise, I was lost in a sea of "qwerty" keyboards and touch screens.  For real?  I seriously thought smartphones were just a fad.  When and how the shit did I miss this?

In what Paranoid Zach suspects is more than a coincidence on the same week of this realization, a professor prompted a show of hands for those who have smartphones.  Almost the entire class.  Ever since this informal survey, I have been looking at Carl with more contempt than ever.  My regard for him changed from that of a computer at an inner-city school to something even worse: a child's broken toy that makes randomized partial phone calls and runs out of batteries every day.

And that is how I decided to want a smartphone.

This post is dedicated to Olivia Bunde, who has a much cooler phone than I do.