My Cell Phone Died!

Can you believe it. Can you JUST believe it. I pay like a hundred bucks for the thing not three years ago, and last Friday it just craps up and dies! Sure, I may have been the last guy on earth using a phone with a monochromatic screen and the inability to play "Perphect House Daddy — Tha Killa Protein Moleculezz" MP3 clips when my "badass Mom" is calling, but it worked fine and it had all my numbers stored in it. I had even used the little melody composer to compose a custom ring that sounded, to me, like a crazy bumblebee who thought he was an electron-hummingbird (a hummingbird that disappears from one spot and reappears in another without any perceptible passage of time). Now that is all lost!

I had left the unit in the car overnight, and when I went to fetch it the next morning I noticed the battery had died. A few seconds after plugging it into its charger, it blipped into life and the screen said, "SYSTEM FAILURE - CONTACT SERVICE PROVIDER." It also said "SOS" above one of the multipurpose menu keys, so I pressed "SOS," figuring it would send a distress-type call to my service provider, who would then happily explain that I needed to stick a paperclip into a particular nook or cranny in order to rejuvenate the thing.

ME: Oh, I guess I should press on the "SOS" button. That's what the phone seems to want.

ME: [presses on "SOS" button, waits, thinks, "Oh, I should do this later. I'm about to go on vacation." Hangs up on "SOS."]

ME: Honey, did we get the dog medicine? Are we ready to go?

WIFE: I need to write back to a couple people. Can you hang on a minute?

ME: [sensing chance to call "SOS" and straighten everything out] Oh, no problem! Great.

ME: [Calls "SOS" again]

SOS: This is 9-1-1. What is your emergency?

ME: Oh, my cell phone must be broken. It said to call "SOS" and had this button, but it connected me to you.

WIFE: You idiot! When cell phones crash, they're required to still be able to call 911. That's what SOS is.

ME: No, "SOS" is an international distress signal made famous by ships.

SOS: Thank you. [hangs up]

WIFE: Nice going.

ME: I did what the phone said. You want to yell at somebody, yell at my phone.

WIFE: I'm not going to yell at your phone.

ME: Well, I am. YOU SUCK, PHONE! YOU COST MONEY AND YOU MAKE ME SAD!

WIFE: [leaves]

ME: Oh well, I'll call my brother who used to sell cell phones. He'll tell me what to do.

ME: Oh wait, I can't. [Looks out window] Hey, there's a police car blocking our driveway! Those guys think they can park anywhere. What if he's still there when we try to go on vacation? I'll need to—

DOG: chris i am dying

Long story short, I swapped my phone's "SIM" card (?) into an even older, crappier unit that we had found in a vodka screwdriver the day after my 30th birthday party, so if you call me and all you can hear are gummy staticky sounds, that is what it's like to talk to a dead cocktail.