Change is Hard

Last week, the Mom of No's mobile device died.

It had been a lingering disaster in the making, as the battery life got shorter and shorter until finally the Smartphone of No was spending more time on the charger than off of it, and then finally it just decided that it was really just done with charging entirely. It was clear: the time had come to suck it up and get a new phone.  Enforced change was coming.

Back in the ancient days Before Internet, one of the first things I had to do as a newly minted college graduate and contributor to society was set up phone and electricity accounts for my first grown-up apartment.  This process involved making two phone calls and writing out two deposit checks.  The big decision was whether or not I wanted call waiting.  I probably could have gotten cable TV but since it was my own money being spent and I was feeling newly frugal, I decided I could probably live with the five free channels on offer. 

Then cell phones and the Internet happened and "do you want call waiting?" turned into "iPhone or Android? Cable or satellite dish or some kind of internet related method that everyone (but you) seems to understand? How much data do you use per month? Do you stream videos? Do you want a hotspot for your house? How many devices do you have?".

Not only was I on some grandfathered data plan with my cell phone carrier, but I'd gotten an URGENT e-mail from our TV and internet provider informing me that our agreement with them was expiring and we needed to call IMMEDIATELY to find out what FANTASTIC deals we could get!   Before the Dad of No and I could do that, we had to answer the bigger question, did we even want to stay with our current provider? The internet service had been OK, but the TV service, not so much.  So what did we want to do? Cable? Satellite? Something about a "stick"?   I made a sad attempt at research and gave up when I realized I was completely confused. I did what any self-respecting change-hater would do: I delegated the decision to the Dad of No under the premise that he watches more TV than I do, so he had more interest in the outcome.  

Then all of a sudden I had this dying mobile phone, and I had to rapidly come to terms with the undisputable fact that more change was coming.  I really just wanted the iPhone fairy to come to my house and slide a functioning phone under my pillow as I slept, kind of like the tooth fairy but for grownups, but that doesn't happen in real life, at least not to me.

The last time I'd gotten a new phone, the service provider had tried to talk me into a program in which you kept the phone for six months, and then you could get a new phone, but you didn't actually own the phone, so there was a "payment plan" added to the bill, but you could only get certain data plans if you signed up for this plan, and if you wanted to buy the phone then you had other data plans and they weren't as good as the first data plan, and after about five minutes I was really confused because no one actually would answer the most important question of all, which was, "How much is this actually going to cost? or the second most important question of all, which was "What happens when something happens to the not-paid for phone?".

But you can get an upgrade every SIX MONTHS! The representative kept telling me. Twice a year, you can have a NEW PHONE! I finally had to tell the enthusiastic young salesman that it takes me a year to figure out how to use the darn thing.  The minute the words left my mouth I realized that was exactly something the Grandpa of No would say, which made me feel even older, because I really just wanted a phone that worked with a data plan I could understand and a price that made sense, and none of those things seemed to be happening for me. I know choice is supposed to be good but this was too much choice; I just wanted a phone!

So, feeling a sense of angst-ridden deja-vu,  I ventured once again to the store of the mobile devices. As it turned out the process had been revised somewhat in the last five years so once we went through the whole thing of "Wow, this phone is a relic! I can't believe it was still working for you!" the whippersnapper saleslady was able to find me a plan with unlimited data and a discount on a TV plan that included the channel that has The Simpsons, all at a  price I could live with, so I even managed to do the near impossible, which was to make everyone in the household happy at the same time.

Plus, now I have a phone that doesn't require a charge every five minutes, which I intend to keep for the next five years, because that is probably how long it will take me to figure out how it works.