The Nest

Phone frenzy

Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:25 PM

You usually know going into a wedding what the expenses will be: food, flowers, dress, music, photographer. Not once on any budget list did I see cell phone (and I'm working off of three lists for this wedding).

I know I exhausted my phone this month: the vibrating function has stopped working, and half the calls I receive aren't coming through. They don't even sell my phone anymore (and the darn thing is only a year old -- go figure!).

So tonight I'm going to get a new phone, thanks to early upgrade. I've sent all my pictures to my cell company's web site so I can send them back to my phone.

While I was transferring pictures, I took a look at my bill (which I pay electronically every month). I nearly fell over … I went over my 900 minutes (15 hours) – by 324 minutes. That means I talked for more than 1,200 minutes. For all of you doing calculations, that's 20 hours!

My first thought was: that's impossible! I've had a cell phone for the past seven years and have NEVER gone over. Sure, I might have made a few calls to some vendors or bridesmaids, but not nearly that much.

There's no way I could have talked for the length of 20 "Desperate Housewives" episodes, 40 "Golden Girls" episodes or five showings of "Gone With the Wind" (in Shoshana math, this is how I measure things).

My second thought was: who was it that put me over? I have one of those plans where you can call everybody you know who uses the same company you do. Which meant it was someone who doesn't (take that Jessica Fletcher).  

So I checked the numbers and we have a tie ladies and gentleman: The grand prize of a trip to the parking lot at Vons goes to … my mother and my fiancé.

Mom, I love when you call me, but please borrow a different phone to do so or change plans. Or e-mail me more – those are free.

Honey, we have to talk. I know you don't always charge your personal phone (which is in the same company as mine) and thus you use your work cell phone, but it costs less for you to text me (I get 250 of those a month) than to call me after my minutes have run out. And now that we share the same address, we should be able to have more face time conversations.

So it looks like I'll be upgrading my minutes plan as well as my phone. The next level takes me to 1,350 minutes (22.5 hours). If I go over that, I think it is time for an intervention.