All Right, I've Capitulated!

For years I've rejected the whole concept of the cell phone. I get annoyed when I'm on a train, or in a doctor's waiting room (such as the eye doctor's, with drops in the eyes preventing me from reading), for example, and am hostage to someone's banal conversation. I really don't want to hear about whether he was a good kisser or how terrible it was that they were out of prune juice or how the blood clot is progressing. I get powerfully annoyed when I'm having a meal with a friend I haven't seen for a while, and the guy at the next table is selling his shares of Exxon. I become downright livid when a guy in the 18th row, center, has forgotten to turn his phone off during the concert. I've said many times, proudly, that I believe myself to be the last surviving person who has no cell phone and has never been to Disney World.

You see where this is going.

And it's not to Disney World.

Close friends and at least one family member have urged me to get a cell phone, so that I'm safe when traveling alone. (Never mind that my radius 99 percent of the time is two miles.) I've declined. I didn't want to become the annoyance that plagues me. I don't want yet another monthly bill to pay. The price of even the most minimal plan that I could find was in the neighborhood of forty dollars per month! The phones themselves are expensive and come with gadgets that I'd prolly find addictive. And, frankly, I didn't want to be that available. People can catch me at home or at the office, or leave a message. I can't imagine sitting in church and receiving the news that the prune juice had been located!

But there's a Biscuit in the oven, a Biscuit who -- please God -- is nearly baked. And I'm on call to be with Sam (who at one point was the Muffin) when The Time Comes.

So I've given in. The terms of my capitulation are these: (a) I bought a phone that was cheap! Twenty dollars! (b) I bought a phone that has no monthly bill, much less forty dollars! It came with ten dollars worth of minutes on it and I bought a card that held another twenty dollars worth of minutes. Which are to be spent at the rate of twenty cents per minute. All of this will last two months and then I will need to take myself back to Radio Shack to buy more minutes, if I'm so inclined. (c) I've given the number only to Sherry/Chris and to Joe. (d) And I'm still not going to go to Disney World.

It's something else to deal with. Need to charge it at night. Need to remember to put it in pocket in the morning. (Need to remember to wear something with pockets!) Needed this very morning to ask one of the seniors to show me how to turn the ringer to vibrate so I don't disturb people (Joe and I tried last night for longer than we should have to accomplish this; it took Scott fewer than 15 seconds). But I've got it, and when Biscuit is imminent, I'll know, no matter where I am. And here's the coolest part: I got to select the sound that the phone will make when it rings -- and, guess what -- one of the choices was the flute solo that Sherry played at her senior recital! You know, the one that goes BAH, ba ba ba, ba ba ba, ba ba BAH ba! Isn't that just downright nifty!