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My darling younger son, Micah, loves all things grownup. He loves key rings, wallets, purses, cell phones, etc. More than once he's temporarily lost my keys and secretly removed items from my purse. He also likes to remove Bryan's cell phone from the home charger. Of course the home charger has two small buttons one must depress to remove the phone safely, but Micah doesn't bother with such minute details. He just yanks the phone and cord apart. When Bryan became aware of this, he would tell Micah to stop doing that if he caught him in the act. So what did my dear Micah do? Force the cord back into the phone's charger jack. So, not surprisingly, after the charger has been yanked out and crammed back into the jack, the jack is no longer operable. Some might say ruined. Some might be right.

So yesterday Bryan and I went shopping at the Sprint kiosk at the mall. They say, sure, give us $150, and we'll give you our cheapest phone. How's that for encouraging customer loyalty? We say, um, no. So we traipse on over to the TMobile kiosk just down the way, find that they have a similar plan, free phones (for new customers) galore, and take hope. Back to the not-very-happy-to-not-have-made-a-sale rep at the Sprint kiosk. How much would it cost to cancel the service? Oh, just $200. Not good.

So we return home, phoneless and defeated. In our current financial situation, neither of these options are appealing or even feasible. But a phone must be had. So I turn to my trusty friend, The Internet. Unlocked phone? Not a good value, plus we'd still be saddled with the Sprint bills every month or cancellation fee. ((shudder)) And then like a bolt of lightning, the inspiration to Google used cell phones comes to me. And I find a very convenient website selling just that. Not only that, but they had categorized the phones by carrier so I didnt' have to waste time sorting through phones that wouldn't work with our service.

I was able to find a bluetooth capable phone in rather good condition with charger and have it insured and shipped Priority Mail for $50. Once it arrives, we can call Spint and have them activate it as a replavement for the sad, sad, broken phone, and we can ride out the rest of our contract (7 months). The best part would be their money-back guarantee of the phone. Once it arrives we have 20 days to return it and get back what it cost us (minus shipping and insurance).

It kinda feels good to not have bought a phone from Sprint for the ridiculous price they were asking! Seems like such a racket to me.




Now, of course, to keep Micah from the new(-to-us) phone.