For the next few days, I may be a bit harder to get hold of than usual, spanning the gap between Howard Hughes and Nessie. Last night, after months of mild but persistent prodding not unlike the forced erosion inside a rock tumbler, my wife convinced me to join her plan.

Her cell phone plan, I mean. I just like saying it that way because it sounds ominous, especially with all the Sith in the air.

There’s an overarching metaphor or symbolism there for someone feeling more ambitious: Holly wanted me to get with the Family Plan, but I would not do it no matter how expensive and foolhardy sticking with my old one was. I could talk for free with all my friends on the old plan, all my single guy friends. And so on. But Holly knew that if she assimilated me into the Family Plan fold there was a new phone in it for her, that her hated, close-buttoned Fumble Fone would be banished forever to the Island of Good Ideas at the Time, and that it would cut our bills in half. So the question of what I will do for fifty more bucks a month has now been settled.

I held on tight for a while, though, like some kid wearing a football helmet and eating only oatmeal in a desperate attempt to keep those baby teeth in there. I think I was resisting switching over just because someone was telling me to, which looks like it’s gonna be my Thing for the rest of my life. It only gets worse as I get older. I see myself at a McDonald’s drive-thru ten years from now:

“Pull around to the next window.”
“F*** you! You’re not my mom!”

I say no to iTunes, and iTunes isn’t even alive.

It certainly wasn’t that I liked my now-old phone; the only reason I had it was that its beloved predecessor broke, which doesn’t really garner that phone a Congressional Medal of Honor either. My last phone was frickin’ iMac orange and stored my phone numbers in a locked filing cabinet inside a hedge maze. It could be kept on vibrate only until you plugged it in each night for recharging, at which point it marked each phone call with an ear-splitting klaxon that could not be shut off, turned down or changed under any circumstances. I think that’s a feature everyone can appreciate: a phone that only makes its loudest noises when you’re trying to sleep.

I just hate replacing things that still work, even if they “work.” Given my experience with cell phones, I didn’t think I’d have to wait this long for orangey to split in half or something.

I’ve quickly realized since last night that what I’ve been fighting all this time is a tiny, easier-to-use, clear-signalled free convenience that (because it’s the law) has a camera built right into it. Oh yes, I now carry a still/video camera in my very pantaloons at all times. Are you listening, brutalizing policemen? International espionage is not out of my reach. They’ve added an electronic camera shutter noise to the phone so that I can’t take your picture without you knowing it, but I’ll figure out how to deactivate that soon enough.

And though I would never really use it, it’s something knowing that I could make the theme from Super Mario Brothers my ringtone. (Where’s Pac-Man? Wouldn’t the opening of Pac-Man make a fine ringtone? I think video game “music” has finally found its calling. So to speak.)

Other than getting my phone numbers from one phone to another (holy Christ, it’s like moving day without enough boxes, concentrated in your thumbs) the new phone has been a pleasant addition to our family of soon-obsolete, vaguely metallic gizmos. The only snag the Leader has encountered while recruiting me into the Family Plan is that my portable phone number, so happy living inside the old phone, can’t decide what to do when someone calls. Should I ring inside Orangey McSprint? Dare I to awaken the camera’d marvel of the near future? Indecisive, it throws the calls around willy nilly, waiting for the mothership to tell it which phone it definitely lives in now. In the meantime, I have no idea what is going to happen when you dial those magnificent 7-10 digits, but your call is important to us. Please stay on the line, and eventually it will be the right one.

All that text, and that’s really all I logged on to say.