The Long Story of a Small Gadget

Despite the August date under the title, this is July’s List entry. I know, I know, I’ve posted late two months in a row…procrastination is a fault of mine. Just ask my mother about the laundry and she’ll tell you.

So, this story actually begins years ago when I was moving up from cheap dollar store phones. I had found this really cute phone, a Pantech Pursuit. Being me, I hemmed and hawed about it, wavered back and forth between it and another phone; and by the time I decided I really wanted the Pantech, it was “unavailable”. Even Amazon didn’t know when it would be available again. I fussed and cussed and bought the other phone, a refurbished Samsung Strive. It wasn’t a touch screen, but it did have a QWERTY keyboard and was much cooler than the flip phone…which had a screen just slightly bigger than my big toe nail.
I carried that Strive for three years: three years of phone envy and checking out the phone displays in almost every store I entered. None of them, however, could compete the phone that got away and so I remained grudgingly faithful to the Strive.

Fast forward to two months ago. In another “I hate my phone” moment, I was browsing Amazon’s collection of unlocked phones…and lo and behold! There she was in all her beauty, the phone I had given up on and deleted off my wish list in despair! The Pantech Pursuit in cute green!
I bought.
It came.
I opened it.
I hated it.
I really should have known better; I mean, my very first touch screen device had been an iPad, top of the line, wonder of the technological world. The Pantech Pursuit was a $50 cheap plastic touch screen; the best way to describe it would be “wonky”–often unresponsive and always unreliable. I’d scroll down my list of contacts looking to call Mom and find myself in an awkward conversation with my old nursing home. I’d be on Facebook trying to update my status and find myself staring a picture of someone with no idea how I’d gotten there. And don’t even get me started on the camera! So when Dad came home one day in early July asking if anyone wanted a refurbished iPhone 4, I found the words “I’ll take it” coming out of my mouth.
It took Dad quite a while to get me the phone, but he finally brought it on August 1st…which is why this post is late.
I took it down to the AT&T store Saturday after work to get my number transferred and set up the smart phone prepaid plan–and ran into a number of issues, most of which could have been avoided if I had taken the time to do a little research.
Problem A: Apple won’t let you put a prepaid plan on an iPhone. Problem B: because of problem A, I was going to have to get a new number. Problem C: to set up a smart phone plan apparently requires a credit check and Problem D: the phone which had worked the night before would not turn on for nothing.
I felt sorry for the sales rep assigned to me. We’d get through one problem, run into the next and have to start all over again. Literally. We had just finished the process when the phone wouldn’t turn on. The rep diagnosed water damage from the previous owner. He said I should take it back for a refund; I told him I wasn’t walking out of the store without an iPhone. I realize in hindsight this wasn’t the best haggling move ever, but it all turned out in the end. I returned the broken phone for a full refund, got a brand new iPhone 4 for $1.99, a discount for working at a nursing home, and thanks to April’s Thing, my credit was approved!
I am now the very happy owner of an iPhone! I loved my iPad all by itself–I absolutely adore it now that it works in tandem with my iPhone. I can get a flash of inspiration on the go, type it in on the phone and when I get home, it’s on the iPad! How cool is that? (Yes, yes, I know it’s called iCloud sync and it’s standard on most devices these days, but still. Pretty cool!)

So, that’s July’s New Thing: I upgraded to the realm of smart phones and meet a very patient sales rep from AT&T.