Herban Sprawl

BGF just bought his daughter a new cell phone. It has texting. She’s in hog heaven. All weekend she has left lines on her FaceBook page like ‘going outside, call or text me!” She is just dying for someone to text her.

Now let’s be clear about this. The only reason she got a new phone was because he was buying himself a new iPhone. If he was buying himself a toy, he had to buy her a toy. Plain and simple. He needed a texting playmate.
I don’t text. I think I can with my phone, but I’m not really sure. It’s not something I find necessary. As it is, our cell phone use is pretty minimal.

The only reason I have one has to do with the trips back to Illinois to tend my aging paternal unit. The Uncles and Bubbas all had the precursor to AT&T, so that’s what I got so I could have unlimited calls to those on the same plan. It made it a lot easier, since they were the ones providing me with intelligence on the day to day shenanigans. Somewhere in there, we had a crisis and I got a $300 phone bill. I went through the roof.

Then, it was time to replace my phone, so I added Big Kitty to the plan. The only reason for it was so I could find him in Lowe’s. Big Kitty has a unique talent. He can vaporize. And, like all cats, when he doesn’t want to be found, he cannot be found. I got tired of walking all over the place to find him, so I reasoned that I could ring him and arrange a meeting place. “Yo. You done in ‘lectrical? Meet me in plumbing.” We also had a new feature that I had been enjoying for a few years - rollover minutes.

So while I was giggling over this new plea for text messages, he chuckled along with me and then wondered out loud how many rollover minutes we had accrued. I looked it up. We had 10,722 minutes, but 980 had just expired. We added 997 minutes and came out with 10,739 minutes.

You could say our cell phone usage is minimal. Anyway, we did the math and it turns out we could, between our two phones, yak for seven and a half days before we depleted the stash of minutes for the two phones. Most people don’t get this.

We live in a holler on Snob Crick. We don’t get cell waves worth spit down here. Neither of us will call and drive. So that limits us to a conversation in the grocery store parking lot. Now who in heaven’s name wants to sit in the parking lot in front of The Fresh Market gabbing on the phone? Oh, stupid question…only that dizzy doofus in the behemoth that is looming up on the rear bumper of that little Focus….. You get the picture.

So while Herself is begging everyone to text her, I am cringing. She already cannot spell, and this is only going to complicate matters. If I were to commit murder upon her paternal unit’s person, the matter would go to Judge Weckstein. If I were to say, “Oy! Yer Honor, the deceased bought his daughter a damn texting phone and I’ve been trying valiantly to teach her to spell. He went and mucked it up so badly that I was driven to snuff him out by reason of sanity.” I think Weckie would get it. He knows the guy. He knows whereof I speak when it comes to banging one’s head on the desk.

Instead, I shall suffer this latest indignation with the hopes that her friends have used up all their minutes!