Here
is Spring Break advice, as told by Carter, my friend. "Don't break your
cell phone, thinking insurance will cover it, because it won't." Once
again, a friend of mine comes up with priceless information, only
receivable through experience. It's my duty to report it, so that others
won't have to learn it the hard way.
One day I was in Greenville. I had my old nokia 8900 model. Not sure if that was the exact model, but it was one of the first digital units that hit the market several years back. By the time I was in Greenville that one day, it was way out of date. Nobody had a monochrome phone any more. Everything had 256 bit graphics, and the only people still using my model phone were homeless people and recluses. My phone showed all the signs of use: the battery was taped on, the screen was shifted to the side, and all the numbers were worn off. The social ineptitude of my phone finally gave way, when I accidently dropped it, on Main Streen in Greenville.
I looked down at it for half a second. During that half second, I thought to myself, I can either spend ten minutes putting it back together, and making sure the screen is in the right place, or....
And in that half second, I realized that whatever came after "or" would be the best solution. If you count all the times I spent putting my phone back together in the last year, it would probably accumulate to nearly four hours. So for the next ten seconds, the "or" ended up being me stomping on my phone, maniacly laughing, like a crazed cartoon supervillan. If this incident were to have happened during the daylight hours, I am sure birds would have been chirping, and love songs would have started playing. That's how blissful it was, stomping on that phone. The phone was all over the street, in a billion beautiful pieces. I bent over and retrieved the Sim Card, and started down the street to continue my night-life experience in Greenville.
After a weekend of being free of an electronic leash, I started to miss my communication with the rest of the world. But this only excited me further. I couldn't wait to get to Cingular and upgrade my phone.
Finally on Wednesday, I went to my local Cingular store. I expected people to cheer me with awe, and sales people to drop everything they were doing to assist me. "There's the man who's getting a new phone!" I imagined the world saying. People walking into ajacent stores would see me, pause, and say "Wow, there goes one lucky m-f-er." (they had to say 'm-f-er' because children were around).
So I trotted into the store, gitty as Seth when he's drunk, and waltzed up to the sales person. Long story short, turns out I would have to pay near-full price for a new phone because I wasn't at the end of my service, and my insurance only covered a small portion of a new phone. So I bought the best phone I could afford: the 8901 model. This phone was exactly like my old phone, but harder to use. I didn't know any of the commands, and the firmware was "updated", so I didn't know the interface either. All in all, I was stuck for the next year, with a phone I disliked even more than my previous one.
A few weeks ago, Carter was in a similar situation: he wanted a new phone because his old phone was not up to par with his standards. He went about it slightly differently. He climbed to the top of a hill in my apartment complex, and spent an hour drop-kicking it down the stairs. This got the job done perfectly, however during the incident, the battery and cellphone parted ways, and the battery found itself somewhere in the underbrush. He and a friend spent another hour looking for the battery, which, to this day, is still leaking alkaline fluid into the roots of mutant shrubbery.
When he made it to Cingular, he had to pay for a new battery, and pay for repairs on his old phone, since his insurance plan did not cover drop-kicking. To be honest, that's not what his plan said, but I cannot remember the exact reason for Cingular's lack of help. So this is why Carter gave the advice we should all take to heart: "Don't break your cell phone, thinking insurance will cover it, because it won't." Sadly for Carter, the Romans where right when they said, "When a thing is done, advice comes too late."
Carter's advice servers to help and aid us in our daily struggles. But watch out for people too eager to give advice. Author Charles Varlet Marquis de La Grange, who's name is entirely too long, offers a bit of wisdom. "When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice." Keep that in mind if anyone EVER tells you, "Break your cell phone, because I did, and insurance WILL cover it." This applies to any sort of insurance fraud.
Now, while on the topic of advice, I will tell you a secret: The art of advice is to make the recipient believe he thought of it himself. So my goal is to not give advice, but rather tell a story that will make the reader say to himself, "You know, maybe it's not a good idea to throw this cell phone, in hopes of receiving insurance money." So, whatever you do, don't take any of this information to heart. Instead, live your life as if you never read this. And if you ever come accross an opportunity to break your phone, think twice, but pretend like I didn't tell you to.
One day I was in Greenville. I had my old nokia 8900 model. Not sure if that was the exact model, but it was one of the first digital units that hit the market several years back. By the time I was in Greenville that one day, it was way out of date. Nobody had a monochrome phone any more. Everything had 256 bit graphics, and the only people still using my model phone were homeless people and recluses. My phone showed all the signs of use: the battery was taped on, the screen was shifted to the side, and all the numbers were worn off. The social ineptitude of my phone finally gave way, when I accidently dropped it, on Main Streen in Greenville.
I looked down at it for half a second. During that half second, I thought to myself, I can either spend ten minutes putting it back together, and making sure the screen is in the right place, or....
And in that half second, I realized that whatever came after "or" would be the best solution. If you count all the times I spent putting my phone back together in the last year, it would probably accumulate to nearly four hours. So for the next ten seconds, the "or" ended up being me stomping on my phone, maniacly laughing, like a crazed cartoon supervillan. If this incident were to have happened during the daylight hours, I am sure birds would have been chirping, and love songs would have started playing. That's how blissful it was, stomping on that phone. The phone was all over the street, in a billion beautiful pieces. I bent over and retrieved the Sim Card, and started down the street to continue my night-life experience in Greenville.
After a weekend of being free of an electronic leash, I started to miss my communication with the rest of the world. But this only excited me further. I couldn't wait to get to Cingular and upgrade my phone.
Finally on Wednesday, I went to my local Cingular store. I expected people to cheer me with awe, and sales people to drop everything they were doing to assist me. "There's the man who's getting a new phone!" I imagined the world saying. People walking into ajacent stores would see me, pause, and say "Wow, there goes one lucky m-f-er." (they had to say 'm-f-er' because children were around).
So I trotted into the store, gitty as Seth when he's drunk, and waltzed up to the sales person. Long story short, turns out I would have to pay near-full price for a new phone because I wasn't at the end of my service, and my insurance only covered a small portion of a new phone. So I bought the best phone I could afford: the 8901 model. This phone was exactly like my old phone, but harder to use. I didn't know any of the commands, and the firmware was "updated", so I didn't know the interface either. All in all, I was stuck for the next year, with a phone I disliked even more than my previous one.
A few weeks ago, Carter was in a similar situation: he wanted a new phone because his old phone was not up to par with his standards. He went about it slightly differently. He climbed to the top of a hill in my apartment complex, and spent an hour drop-kicking it down the stairs. This got the job done perfectly, however during the incident, the battery and cellphone parted ways, and the battery found itself somewhere in the underbrush. He and a friend spent another hour looking for the battery, which, to this day, is still leaking alkaline fluid into the roots of mutant shrubbery.
When he made it to Cingular, he had to pay for a new battery, and pay for repairs on his old phone, since his insurance plan did not cover drop-kicking. To be honest, that's not what his plan said, but I cannot remember the exact reason for Cingular's lack of help. So this is why Carter gave the advice we should all take to heart: "Don't break your cell phone, thinking insurance will cover it, because it won't." Sadly for Carter, the Romans where right when they said, "When a thing is done, advice comes too late."
Carter's advice servers to help and aid us in our daily struggles. But watch out for people too eager to give advice. Author Charles Varlet Marquis de La Grange, who's name is entirely too long, offers a bit of wisdom. "When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice." Keep that in mind if anyone EVER tells you, "Break your cell phone, because I did, and insurance WILL cover it." This applies to any sort of insurance fraud.
Now, while on the topic of advice, I will tell you a secret: The art of advice is to make the recipient believe he thought of it himself. So my goal is to not give advice, but rather tell a story that will make the reader say to himself, "You know, maybe it's not a good idea to throw this cell phone, in hopes of receiving insurance money." So, whatever you do, don't take any of this information to heart. Instead, live your life as if you never read this. And if you ever come accross an opportunity to break your phone, think twice, but pretend like I didn't tell you to.
No comments:
Post a Comment