The Phone is Dead. Long Live the Phone!

Last weekend we watched Click. I'm sure you remember how that turned out. This weekend we saw Bridge to Terabithia. Wow. I've got to start researching these movies before we watch them. I knew it was based on a book, but having never read the book, I didn't really know what to expect. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but it's not even close to what I was expecting based on the previews. The commercials made it look like a Chronicles of Narnia sort of movie. Yeah. Not so much. It was a lot closer to My Girl. I remember seeing My Girl on HBO, unknowingly assuming I was watching an innocent, care-free little kid's movie, then BLAM! I remember thinking, "What the hell, movie?"

In this movie, everything was moving along nicely, although halfway through I was starting to wonder why they called it Bridge to Terabithia, since they used a rope to get there. The main character goes to the museum with his hot music teacher. When they get back, his parents flip out, and I figured it was because they thought the hot music teacher was putting the moves on their sweet little boy. Then the My Girl moment happens, and once again, all I could think was, "What the hell, movie?"

Fortunately, Brianna didn't leave the theater traumatized for life. I peeked over at her at one point to see how she was doing, and her eyes looked red and filled with about as much water as they can possibly hold without actually crying. Later, she swore what actually happened was she had a hair in her eye. But she was fine, she even said afterwards that it was a great movie and she wanted to get it on DVD.

I do take issue with whoever made the previews, though. I was so certain that at some point, the kids were going to be magically transported to this Terabitha place, Even well into the second act, when it was become clear that movie was pretty much an extended episode of Muppet Babies, I was thinking, "Okay, so they're just running around in the woods imagining fighting giant trolls and weird killer squirrels now, but eventually they're going to find out that the art set the girl gave the boy was enchanted by a wizard or something and brought his drawings to life." Why would I think this? Because the trailer is filled with trolls and fairies flying around all over the place and a giant castle off in the distance. Half of the commercial is taken directly from the last thirty seconds of the film. Really.

In short, "Boo" misleading trailer maker. "Hurray" movie!

Also, I got a new phone the other day, after my old one was tragically stung by bees. I mean, somehow broke in half.

I've had my old phone since December 2003. I got it from the Sprint store down the street from my work, along with identical phones for Michele and Ryan. As the years went on, theirs continued to appear brand-new; Michele's because she had a leather case for it, and Ryan's because he barely ever used it. But the ravages of time were not kind to mine, and before long the edges were worn and covered in chips and scrapes. Michele would say, "I bought you a cover for that phone, put it on before you wreck it!" But the cover always got dirty and sometimes little crumbs would slip in underneath the plastic covering and just make a mess. Plus I could never hit the buttons when they were covered in hermetically-sealed plastic. It was like an old lady's couch. So the cover didn't last very long. I thought it looked better without it anyway. Why hide the phone's natural silver majesty with an unimpressive black cover? I didn't even mind all the scratches; they gave it character. And they made it look a bit like Bobba Fett's Mandalorian armor.

The bottom of the phone had a removable cap to protect where the phone plugs into the charger. That was the first to go. I don't know what happened, it just fell off one day, never to be seen again. The next to go were the little rubber stoppers that covered where you plug in peripherals. One was for headphones. I'm not sure what the other was for, but both rubber things eventually crumbled and fell off, exposing the holes. There's got to be a better way to say that.

But those were all cosmetic issues. They didn't keep the phone from working. I constantly lost calls in the middle of conversations, but that was Sprint's fault, not the phone's. That little phone worked just fine for years, until about six months ago, when it wouldn't stay connected to the charger. It'd beep to indicate that it was hooked up to the charger, then immediately beep again to say it's not connected. Yes, it seems that losing the cap that covered the charger slot finally caught up with me. Something must have got stuck in there or bent the...the...metal thing in there that the charger connected to. Luckily, a small amount of force was all that was needed to keep the plug from falling out, so I just wrapped a rubber band around it when it was charging.

Then, tragedy struck. A few months ago I went to a Bruins game with a bunch of people. We drove to Boston in Jose's car, and parked in the garage next to the Garden. No one ever seems to remember where they park in these giant garages, so I pulled out my trusty camera phone and took a picture of the "P-4" pillar next to the car. That way, we'd remember where the car was. This was the last time anyone saw my phone that way again.

After the comically lopsided Bruins loss, we somehow got separated on the way back to the car. Okay, I got separated. But it was no big deal, because I had a picture on my phone of where we parked. I took a staircase (that someone had recently puked in) back down to our section of the garage. I remembered "P-4," and his car was right next to the sign, so I didn't bother looking at the phone. It turns out there are several "P-4" columns, and the staircase I took brought me to the wrong section of the garage. I looked at one signs and noticed that underneath P-4 there's another reference point, to distinguish it further from the other P-4s. I took out my phone to see if I could see which P-4 I was looking for. My horror at what I discovered was twofold. Not only had I cropped the photo just above where the smaller writing was, but when I flipped open the phone, it cracked and broke right where the left hinge is! Dammit, my phone!

I eventually found my way to Jose's car and told everyone about the puke-filled stairwell and my newly-broken phone. It still worked fine, but the hinge was broken. I was crushed. How could this have happened? It's not like I jumped out of a moving train, I was just sitting down. How can a phone break while seated?

The My Girl moment happened a few weeks ago. I had gotten used to the broken lid, and even had a method of opening it . Then, it just couldn't take it anymore, and the right hinge broke as well. The cover didn't fall completely off; it was held together by some wires in the middle. It was in pretty bad shape, but it still worked fine. By that time, we were already unhappy with Sprint and knew that we were going to be switching to another company, so it should have been the end. But we had to wait until our tax refunds came in to switch services, so I contined using my poor, beat-up phone for a few more weeks. The rubber band trick didn't really work anymore since the top of the phone broke in half, but I found that using an extra band to keep the top on solved that. So while it was charging, my phone had a rubber band wrapped around it horizontally to keep the top on, and one vertically to keep the charger plugged in. It looked like it was wrapped up in a rubber band ribbon.

Well, goodbye phone. You served me well.