Perched atop the nightstand in my parent’s guest bedroom sits a black rotary style telephone. 
My guess is that my parents have had it since they got married in the early 70s (or perhaps longer) and it still works just as well as I’m guessing it did back then. Sure, it takes a few seconds longer to spin the dial and punch in the number you want to reach, but the thing still works and has outlasted a handful of newer, plastic, more “efficient” models. I was reminded of this phone today when I stopped by my friendly cell phone provider to try to figure out a new phone situation. I got a new phone on Halloween last fall and had to have it replaced at the end of March this year because it just wasn’t working so hot. The replacement phone worked okay for a few days/weeks, but even it hasn’t been such a great phone. I stopped in a couple of weeks ago to see what my options were and they reset my phone for me in order to try and improve the performance. Unfortunately, it really didn’t do anything. So, today, I stopped in, thinking that I’d even be willing to pay a percentage of the price to get a new phone if they’d offer that to me. No such luck. The only thing they could do for me was send me yet another replacement of my current phone and see if this one works any better. If this one doesn’t work for me, then they might be able to help me. Grrrrr…
I am frustrated simply because I hate the fact that cell phones (among other modern inventions) aren’t built to last. Why not just help outfit me in a phone that works and save the money on shipping me a new one? Or, better yet, create phones in such a way that they last more than just a few years…or months in this case. I don’t know…maybe that wouldn’t be efficient for them in the long run. I guess I’m just annoyed that even though the technology that went into creating my cell phone is leaps and bounds more sophisticated than that which went into my parent’s rotary phone, at the end of the day, their phone still functions properly and mine doesn’t. Perhaps someone will invent a cell phone size ceramic rotary phone?! That’d be awesome.
I’ll stop my complaining now and head back to living in my log cabin in the woods…
