Cell phone adventures

I have had the craziest cell phone problems since we left North Carolina. When we first started trekking across the country I knew we were going to go way over our minutes so I called Nextel to see what I could do. The operator helped me out by eliminating a great deal of our overage charges (a couple hundred dollars!), Brian said his phone worked great in his new building (quite a change from Bragg), and we had been pretty happy with our Nextel service thus far. So I decided to go ahead and sign up for a new 2-year plan that gave us more minutes. Brian was going to need the minutes anyway for all of the phone calls he'd be getting from his soldiers and drill sergeants.

As soon as we got to our new town, the trouble began! Brian wanted a local number. Nextel doesn't have local numbers here. Brian lost his antenna. I gave him mine. My sound/volume stopped working properly and I could only hear if I put my caller on speaker phone. My numbers would only dial properly if I had the timing just right .... push a number, count one mississippi, two mississippi, push another number, etc. We only got service within the city limits. Driving to Abilene, San Antonio, or Fort Hood meant knowing we'd have to stop and use a pay phone if we needed to communicate with the outside world.

We decided to switch to Sprint so Brian could get his local number. Nextel and Sprint are partners and we write our check out to "Sprint" every month so you'd think it would be ok. Well, we have Nextel walkie-talkie phones. We were going to have to pay full price for our new phones. I tried to get out of the contract altogether with our military orders, but that didn't work because when I called to change plans I changed our billing address too. So they don't think we've moved. I tried to get out on the basis that they don't have local phone numbers, but that didn't work because they don't care!

Two weeks ago when I was on my way out the door in a rush I put my cell phone on the trunk of my car so I could have a free hand to take out the trash. Then I drove away. I realized what I had done within two miles of the house but couldn't find my phone anywhere. It isn't like it was bright yellow or anything (it was). Really, I don't know why I bothered to carry it with all of the problems I had been having, but now I didn't have to worry about carrying it at all because I was certain it was in the bottom of Lake Nasworthy.

Today I got a call from a lady in Idaho. Yes, Idaho! She has my phone and she wants to know if I want it back. Apparently she found it after a big rainstorm, took it back to Idaho with her, and her daughter was able to make it work enough to get my home number out of the contact list. I told her to go ahead and keep it since it obviously works better for her than for me!

So, to make a long story even longer ... on June 1 Brian and I are being rewarded for being such loyal Nextel customers. After 2 years as customers we are going to each get a $150 credit towards a new phone. It's funny that they give us credit for the 18 months of North Carolina Nextel time even though they wouldn't recognize it when I tried to get out of our contract with Brian's military orders. We're going to take our $150 credit and get new phones (that are Sprint compatible), switch to Sprint (for real, not just Nextel/Sprint ... apparently there is a difference), and keep our old numbers. Brian has decided that he doesn't need a local number since he is planning to get back to Fort Bragg as fast as his combat boots can carry him there.

That's just fine with me. My phone works better there anyway!