First World Problem: I HATE Getting a New Phone

Let me tell you a story about a dear friend, my closest confidant – my iPhone. I met my iPhone on a beautiful late summer day two years ago. My iPhone has been there with me through thick and thin. It has never revealed its secrets, even about my frequent Google searches of “One Tree Hill Nathan Scott”. My iPhone has survived countless drops from varying heights and has been stepped on by my dog pretty much every time I’ve visited home. My iPhone and I have spent plenty of lovely afternoons Instagramming pictures in the park. However, all good things must end.

Lately, my iPhone has been that flaky friend that’s having a text convo with you and then suddenly stops responding for three hours, right as you ask some basic yes or no question. Really, iPhone, it takes you three hours to tell me that in fact you ARE available to go to the mall tomorrow? Bitch was probably texting all her other iPhone friends just to make sure nothing better was going on.

Okay, so maybe not really. But my phone has been freezing and shutting off and not letting me know that I have texts from my REAL friends that actually CARE about me. And the battery is TERRIBLE – the only way this phone could die faster is if somebody pointed a wand at it and said “Avada Kedavra!” I get it, it’s old. There’s been TWO new versions of iPhones since I bought this one. There’s been countless app updates and system updates. All these new apps are designed with the newer, faster, iPhone 5 in mind. No wonder my phone is running slow!

Recently, Charlotte from My Crazy, New York, Post Grad Life posted about phone shopping…like me, she has an ancient iPhone and needs to replace it. While she is debating between the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy, I know that I will be replacing my current iPhone with a new iPhone. Most people are excited at the thought of buying a new phone. It has gotten a lot easier…I remember in high school having to write down all of my contacts so I could later put them in one by one. Ugh! The stone ages! Most people like hearing about all the cool shit their new phone could do. They can’t wait to buy a new case and customize the ringtone and blah blah blah. Not me!

In high school and college, I had some friends who seemingly went through phones as frequently as they changed their underwear. I was ALWAYS being invited to Facebook groups because someone lost their phone or got it stolen or dropped it in the toilet. Not me. I had the same dinosaur of a phone all through high school and actually TRIED to lose it one summer and FAILED. (And then when my parents finally did buy me a new phone, I lost it three days later at the grocery store. Go figure. Luckily, I found it and was able to hold onto that beastly thing until the iPhone made its grand debut.) I may be one of like five college students in the history of the United States to do this, but I did not once lose, break, or get my phone stolen during college. I’m sure there’s some special sticker on my diploma to indicate this.

And then I graduated college. The year after I graduated college, I managed to break one phone and get THREE stolen. Now, it’s not like I was careless and left my phone on a table in the food court at the mall and then wandered away. No. One time it was stolen from my own home. Another time it was by a so-called “friend” of a friend. Each time, I had to buy a new phone. Cell phones seriously are a necessity in this day and age. So after that particular year, you could imagine why I HATE buying phones. I’ve included some more reasons (that are more applicable to the general population, not just those with shitty friends) below.

They’re Expensive

Cell phones are NOT cheap, which sucks because, like I said before, I can’t live WITHOUT my cell phone. Yes, I can live without an iPhone and after the first one got stolen, I did live without an iPhone. I had a series of those crappy pay-as-you-go phones for awhile. Those are also not as cheap as you think they would be, especially when your entire family plan is out of upgrades because you’ve had to replace your phone three times in five months. I know I should be setting aside money for my new phone, but I have other bills to pay.

It’s Not Quick and Easy

I like buying milk – I run into the store, find the carton of milk I want, pay for it, and leave. Done. I don’t really like buying bras. You have to try those on. That takes time. And buying a phone? You have to talk to some salesman to tries to make you spend more money than you want to spend (seriously, nobody uses those cases that clip onto your pants anymore) and then you have to wait for the phone to “activate” and all sorts of other stuff.

You Need MORE New Stuff

Depending on what phone you had and what phone you are buying, you might need to get all new accessories – cases, headphones, charger…suddenly your phone just got a lot more expensive!

And Then You Have to Set It Up

This. This right here. This is my least favorite part. I get home and I need to change my ringtone and set my alarms and put in my wifi password. I know they have the ability to transfer my contact, why don’t they have the ability to transfer my settings??

I know getting a phone is a really awesome thing and there are plenty of people who don’t have the money to get a new phone just because their old one is dying, but it honestly causes me so much anxiety!! I don’t know when I’m getting my new phone yet (I’m honestly holding out as long as possible) but when the time comes, I’m pretty sure I will need people to come with me and hold my hand.

Things I Don’t Like

Last month, I forgot had absolutely no time to come up with creative posts relating to my job in student affairs, so instead I decided to tell you all about the things I was obsessed with at that very moment. A quick little update on those – “The Carrie Diaries” is on it’s summer hiatus (unless it was secretly cancelled like “Flash Forward” was two years ago), I haven’t gone on any Tumblr blogs in awhile (maybe I should since I’ve been in a perpetually bad mood), I’ve been too poor to eat shrimp from the fancy grocery stores and too scared to visit Walmart this month, that means I’ve also been too poor for a Spirit Jersey (I just found out how much those things cost WHAT?!), and I have a week to finish the current three seasons of Arrested Development before the glorious day that Season 4 arrives is upon us.

Back to the point. The other day, my friend was texting me ridiculous things all day. And I don’t mean ridiculous as in pictures of dogs wearing wigs, but she was asking me all sorts of questions. Maybe she was bored at work? Who knows?

This is what I send friends on a regular basis to cheer them up.

Anywho. So one of the questions read “what are things you don’t like?” Or so I thought. But instead of re-reading it, I started typing this epic list of things I don’t like on my iPad. When I went to trim it down and type it in a text message, I realized she asked me to name things I like. Because that makes sense. So I put my list aside and quickly typed up a list of things I like. HOWEVER since I saved that list, I thought another random post would be a great way to honor everything I can’t stand in life. Here we go, in no particular order.

Slow Drivers

There is nothing that pisses me off than people who CAN’T DRIVE. I swear, I don’t know how they got their licenses, but there are some people that can’t grasp basic concepts like using a blinker or getting out of the passing lane if you’re doing five under and there are a bunch of cars behind you. You don’t know me, you don’t know my life. Yeah, yeah, I just want to get to Target and back before the Grey’s Anatomy finale, BUT WHAT IF I WAS TRYING TO GET MY SICK DOG TO THE EMERGENCY VET? Move.

The Way Glitter Gets Everywhere

Yesterday at dinner, I kept seeing something shiny on my face out of the corner of my eye. When I finally went to the bathroom, I saw that there was glitter ALL OVER MY FACE. I know that can happen when one has an interaction with glitter, but the thing is, I did not see any glitter at all yesterday. No glittery make up, no glitter on anything in my purse…where did it come from?!

My iPhone’s Battery

All it does is die. Seriously. I charge it all day at work and by 8 or 9 pm I’m getting the 20% warning. One time I took a day trip to Manhattan. I made sure to charge the phone fully before leaving and used it minimally on the way there. Once I got there, I texted a few friends, maybe took a few pictures, and then put it back in my pocket. After lunch, it was under 30%, so I took thirty minutes and sat on the floor in the lobby of some random building in Manhattan to charge my phone. I do not live a very glamorous life.

Spiders

I know this is a dislike many individuals have. I routinely find creative ways to kill them while keeping myself as far from them as possible. In the past, these have included throwing a shoe at the wall and spraying them with Windex. However, the other day I faced a terrible dilemma. There was a spider crawling ON MY COMPUTER SCREEN. I can’t just throw a shoe at my computer or spray it with Windex. So, I went for the next logical solution – the vacuum. I used the vacuum tube to get rid of the intruder. Except. My vacuum thinks it’s fancy so it has a clear canister instead of a bag so you can see all the dirt and hair you just sucked off your floor. And it turns out that this spider did not die during his trip through the vacuum and was instead happily crawling around all the dirt and hair. There was no way I was emptying that into my trashcan, so I took the whole thing outside to the dumpster and said goodbye to Mr. Spider there. (I also tried calling three different people to see if they’d empty the canister for me – no luck.)

The Spell Checker On This Thing

Right now it’s telling me that I spelled “spiders” and “battery” wrong even though they are not underlined in this paragraph. It also keeps telling me that “texting” and “texted” aren’t real words, but let me assure you, THEY ARE.

When USA Is Showing Something That Is NOT SVU

I’m not sure exactly what “type” of shows the USA channel shows, but 90% of the time I turn it on, they are in the midst of a Law and Order SVU marathon. These marathons usually have some sort of theme that sounds like it could be the title of a Jerry Springer/Maury Povich episode. I don’t even pay attention to the themes, I just sit back and watch six hours of my life disappear. But, during times of absolute SVU need (having the flu, going to the gym and getting the treadmill closest to the TV), I turn on ol’ faithful and find some other crap show on. SVU has taught me that exercising outside is bad for me – I will either find a dead body or I will become one. Hence why I like to watch it while running INDOORS.

When Pandora Goes On Some Weird Tangent

I have my go-to stations on Pandora that ALWAYS play good music. Except for moments like right now where they play eight songs in a row that sound like they could have been composed by my eleven-year-old-self playing with the keyboards in my music tech class. “WOOO ALL THE NOISES!!!”

 

That, my friends, is all for now. I assure you the list was originally much longer, but I also wasn’t putting paragraphs of back story with each item. I will save the rest for some other time.