Lawn Chair Quarterback: "My Very First Cell Phone"

For Internet, the Belv was a dialup town until 2007, when it finally became a high-speed town. And now, for phone service, it's finally becoming a cell phone town.

Today, I finally got my very first cell phone! I promised last week I'd get one, because fraudulent phone calls had made the traditional landline useless. And now I've made good on this pledge, because today my very first cell phone arrived.

This week's episode of 'Lawn Chair Quarterback' covers this revolutionary event:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qni_PL9ta2w

I hoped to be able to use a cell phone for the very first time within the 10 minutes allotted for 'LCQ', but the phone was in that miserable plastic packaging that you almost need a buzzsaw to cut through. (I'm talking about the clear, hard plastic that we've all seen as packaging for electronics.) So this turned out to be like the infamous Geraldo Rivera special about Al Capone's secret vault. I'm talking about the show in which the vault couldn't be accessed by the end of the show. Getting to my new phone was kind of like that.

This new phone shall be used sparingly. It costs a quarter a minute, and that'll be a barg, because I don't let my life revolve around talking on the phone all day. We've all met people who seem to have their ear permanently attached to their phone - even in the landline era. But with me, the buck stops here. I economize.

Fair warning: The government comes down harder on fraudulent calls to cell phones than to landlines.