Hoping for "Most Dropped Calls"

Okay. I hate to admit it, but I do own a cellphone.

I hate the things...have for many years. I think when I got my first one somewhere back soon after we were married, I thought it was pretty cool. Well, actually playing the game "Snake" on the phone was cool (very reminiscent of a fondly remembered game called "Snafu" on my ancient Intellivision system). Anyway, we burned out that contract and got another one...carrying those down with us to North Carolina. Didn't have a load of problems with the phones in the apartment, but the reception at our house was essentially nil (unless you enjoyed going outside for every long distance call you'd ever make).

So our contracts lapsed and we opted to not resign. A year or two passed and Lindsay was going to do some traveling out of state without me and we considered getting a cellphone for safety's sake. As we looked into prepaid dealies and the like, we figured we might as well get two of them for us to have at all times. My major accident this past January was a big proponent for me coming around...that was sort of rough having to use the other person's phone to track down Lindsay and whomever else I needed to contact on MY behalf of the situation.

I was still a little hesitant, remembering what I DO not like about cellphones. I've never enjoyed the image...mainly unimportant people yapping about unimportant pap in the most public of places. Frankly if your Aunt Betty is having diarrhea issues, I don't need to know about it while I'm ordering my cafe' mocha, thank you very much. The second thing that bothers me (almost more than the first) is what HAPPENS TO PEOPLE when they have a cellphone at their disposal. I'm talking about what I call "talking to talk." My wife hates it when I refer to it as that...but that's about the nicest way I can put it.

You may or may not know what I mean. Someone calls you up and just sort of "is there" on the phone. "Calling to say 'Hi'" they say but then they don't carry on the conversation...usually deferring the weight of it to you by asking "so...what are you doing?" This is the point at which I feel like I should be doing something fantastic like "rewiring the house" or "using a kayak to get down the river here" because, if I don't, the response is generally little more than "oh." "Oh" is a hard line to build a conversation on.

Generally about this time the other person sort of drifts off and the two of us sit there, kind of wondering where the call should be going at this point. This drives me crazy...I've always been of the mind that if you're going to call, have a good point. If you're calling to tell me that you'll "be home in five minutes"...that's awesome, I love you, and we'll see you then. It's not that I don't love you, but I really don't know to make "I just folded the towels" exciting. The person that I'm referring to, ahem, is not alone in this...(hopefully that'll save me). I know for a fact that she's gotten calls from someone that have essentially equated to "I met the third cousin of a girl that you went to third grade with at Walmart last week."

So...despite us having Cingular with the "fewest dropped calls" (I can personally vouch for that...you can't even get a call THROUGH first, so a chance of it being dropped is null and void, it's such a lousy service), maybe that idea isn't that bad off, after all.