Smart, Dumb, Guilt, Fun

After years of owning my Nokia slide phone and even more years of owning any kind of Nokia, I find myself guilty and ashamed for tossing aside my brand loyalty in getting a new phone that is not only not a Nokia, but it's also not a dumb phone.  It's smart.  And the guilt increases when I admit, It's just so pretty!

Eddie, his sister N, his mom, and I signed up for a family plan with T Mobile because I've had T Mobile for what seems like forever (brand loyalty much?), and they have a pretty sweet deal.  Sure we have to buy our phones at full price, but we can pay for them in interest free installments and we have no contract, only an agreement to pay at a set rate so they can't turn around and say, haha now pay us a billion dollars plus the phone installments.

This all might seem so simple, and it should have been.  We went to the store in the evening and met a nice salesman who was so knowledgeable and friendly.  He gave me a high five for being a T Mobile customer already.  He said we could up my discount from the 15% I get as a SUNY employee to the 18% CUNY employees get.  Yeay, discounts!  They are second best to Free Stuff.  We went home to figure out numbers and returned the next day to get the plan.

I stood at the counter for two and a half hours.  Eddie came in and out of the store, once bringing me unsweetened iced tea because I was about to die of thirst, having finished my mini bottle of water that I thought would be enough for a quick trip to the SI mall.  N and his mom came in and out, too.  Everyone came in and out, even our niece who could have pitched a fit out of boredom withstood the two and a half hour ordeal.

What we found with the second guy was a more serious approach to salesmanship.  He was doing all the work under his co-worker's name since the co-worker was off for his birthday, so he was basically doing all the work for no credit.  We also found that there is no 18% discount. Yup, while Mr. High Five Man was making friends, he was also lying to our faces.  I said loudly, Now I'm pissed.  This was at the end of hour one.  The store manager who was next to the guy helping us said, We go up to only 15%.  That's it.  That's all she said.  She didn't apologize or inquire further.  So Eddie said, Maybe you should tell that to all your sales people so they don't misinform your customers.  She stood there and said nothing.  Great management skills.

After the two and a half hours, we said thank you a bunch of times and then said goodbye and I walked out with a brand new iPhone 5 smart phone in white.  I have yet to get a cover for it, but I did already download all the things I've wanted to play with for a long time: Instagram, Vine, those apps to make photo collages, Ruzzle, and Seven Little Words.  I'm finding that I'm looking at my email without having to drag out my laptop and I can see my Groupons and Living Social offers without having to sift through thirty five emails.

Look at how creative I am:

FYI: She's going through my recycling. Thought that was illegal.

I could have also taken pictures when we went bowling during which I scored the lowest score Eddie has ever seen me bowl.  Eddie and I have been bowling twice.  Both times, I scored in the mid-triple-digits, two gigantic flukes.  He's been under the impression that I simply have low-bowler-esteem, but finally, now, he's seen the true bowler in me.  That bowler is blind and has a clothespin for an arm.  Our niece beat me, and while she was using bumpers, it wasn't for the entire game.  I didn't take pictures, though, because I have no case for my phone and I was petrified of dropping it.

I could have taken pictures of our bbq on July 4th, but I didn't because I have no case for my phone and I was petrified of dropping it.  My brother grilled.  My parents attended.  We all had a swell time at the party Eddie's sister basically planned at our place when she was planning her trip back here from GA.  Really, it was a fantastically fun week, marred only by the sudden onset of grumpy gums, sending me to urgent care on the morning of the 4th with the fear of having an infection so bad that my jaw was going to disintegrate (it didn't) and then to a dentist the next day while the rest of the gang went to the amusement park.  While they were riding flying elephants and the merry-go-round, I was chit-chatting with a Nassau student who was studying to be a radiologist and working in the dental office, getting my gums numbed, having planing and some other dental work done, and then setting up an appointment to have my two wisdom teeth extracted next week, one of which "has quite a bit of decay" but has not decayed to the nerve. Yet. 

Anyway, so despite my teeth getting dumber, my phone has gotten smarter, and we spent the week with family we don't get to see much.  That falls in the win column.