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Phone Home

Posted on January 3, 2022
By Mike Harper

Changing phone companies? Hold on to something. This gets bumpy.

The phone store. Lois is fine. I’m an alien. They speak a language not taught in school. I was clueless.

The atmosphere: weird.

Large room, space-age tables covered with display phones, all identical.

Posters of happy families who drank the Kool-Aid, whose lives are awesome.

In-house music: Odd. Syncopated, minor key, jazz/techno/urban/rap/instrumentals unrecognizable to anyone 45+. (Was that Freebird?)

The guy: Friendly, with enough piercings, tattoos, and highlights to cover him. Lois, the dazed boomer behind us, and me.

“Dominic” was happy to see us, an undeniable confidence knowing whatever he said I’d believe. “This plan includes unlimited face-time talk-text digital coda-chrome max-data koo-kooka-joob.”
What?

He dumbed it down, showing me a picture, saying, “Monthly payments.” Got it. Welcome to the “family.”

Four hours. Brutal. I should’ve watched a YouTube video on phone stores. I botched my password and username, lost my verification code, and forgot my pin. I must’ve left it in my other pants.

Our old company made it extremely difficult to quit. They hoped we’d get discouraged and say “Ah, the heck with it!” But we persevered!

Soon they were both looking at their phones, speaking “Phone-ese.” (Tongues?) The deal went down! We shook hands, exchanging gratuitous pleasantries. Our Gen Z’er: “Complete the website survey?” Sure…

We logged on. It asked our username, password, code, and pin.

I blacked out.

Lois finished the survey and gave me oxyge.

“A good wife, who can find?” (Proverbs)

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