hotline

Full sun all day at long, long last. We rode bikes up to Hawthorne to get coffee and a paper, then home to plant more stuff, a quick nap, and now, coasting into the afternoon. Ah, Sunday blessed Sunday. No wonder God wanted it all to himself.


Yesterday I was looking for my cell phone--not very hard because I hate my cell phone, but found that I feel pretty disconnected without it. I couldn't find it anywhere and when I called, it went straight to voice mail--a very bad sign. I was almost anxious while driving to asia's baby shower. I mean, what if something bad or unforseen happened and I needed help? I couldn't, for example, speak to another human being and request their assistance, right? I couldn't walk up to someone's front door and knock, unannounced, and say, "May I please use your phone? I seem to be in a jam." They would never let me in the house because I could be a stalker lunatic ax murderer child eater. I could be. However, I managed to get through the day without incident and decided several times that I don't need a cell phone, but by the time I left the shower (which was nice and the food was most excellent and I won baby gift bingo --who made that pizza?) I knew it would be ludicrous to live without one. Its like a car, once you have one, there's just no going back. I had to find my phone.

When I arrived at home, I was drawn to the back yard and my many as-yet-unplanted-plants, and there it was, not quite floating in about an inch of water in one of the starter boxes. I vaguely remembered tucking it in among the plants as I carried tray after tray from the car to the house the day before. Needless to say (and yet I say it) it was not only dead, but dissolving--the batterly leaking blue shit like fly guts, tiny metal parts decomposing in my hand. So that was that. I decided to truck on up to the AT&T store which is never closed and buy me a new red phone. My own hotline.

Now, you could find the search bar and type in "one good line" and find the story of how I acquired the present/previous phone. Its pretty funny. Anyway, I arrived at the store and there were probably ten unoccupied employees glomming onto me for my business.

Recall that I am very easy to sell things to. First of all, I like to spend money, have some to spare, and don't care all that much about anything. So, the guy didn't have to work nearly as hard as he did. Even so, it started out badly.

He says, "Oh, I see you're not an authorized user on this account."
"Yes I am," I countered.
"Actually you're not," he returned, smiling.
"...am too." I hate it when they say "actually" as though I am not living in reality. Pshaw.
Smiling still, indulging my obvious sense of entitlement which is rooted in years of history, he said, "You're just a user. The laws have changed. Now you have to be an authorized user. And you're not."

I'm just a user. Right.

"So call my husband," I suggested, ever so succinctly.
"He has to call 611 from his cell phone himself," he said.
"Well," I began, "Funny thing is, I don't seem to have a phone right now which is pretty much why I'm here so why don't you go ahead and call my fucking husband please. That way, He'll know he has to call 611 to authorize me. Otherwise, I'd have to drive out to Sauvie Island where he is salmon fishing, and that would delay this pending deal indefinitely. You do work on commission, right?"

I didn't really say fuck.

So, I bought a phone and an ear thing, which is called a blue tooth although I can't imagine why. It looks nothing like a tooth, but comes with its own little sticky pieces of wallpaper and I can customize it with leopard or splatted paint or six other slick little things that will roll up and fall in my ear when they get old. Why someone would need to customize something half an inch wide and an inch long, I don't know. I also don't know how to use one, and I'm sure if you know how, it makes talking on a cell phone while driving ever so much safer. But for me, the techno-impaired, its just one more fucking thing. But the phone has a HUGE display when you're dialing which was a quick sell for this blind woman. If I can see it, I'll take it. I don't care how tiny and sexy a cell phone is if I can't see shit.

Time for a motorcycle ride.