Woo-hoo, I am a free man! (Jumps on table and dances a merry jig)
I am a slave whose shackles have been cast off. I now have weekends and evenings again. Last night went by fairly quick, I only had 4 rotations and then I was done. The final shift I just sat in the chair and laughed at people walking by. Once it was over I zipped on out of there. It was tough and the money was not great, but I will probably do it again next year. It's truly an experience.
I have personally laughed into the faces of over 30,000 people in the past month. That's a claim that not many people can attest to. Real nasty laughs, too.
I decided to drop my t-mobile phone. I have had this service forever. I had it back when it was voice stream, and then it turned into some other company, and then it turned into t-mobile. I decided I no longer want to pay forty bucks a month for something I do not use that much. There are much better pre-paid options out there these days and I think I am going to latch on to one. After having a cell phone for several years I have come to realize there are only two features I regularly use. The phone itself, and text messaging. I never use AIM on the phone, I never use the world wide web, which is a joke on cell phones anyways. At one point I used to read the news on my phone, but gave up on that after a while. Camera phones are all crappy. I do not need an mp3 player in my phone, nor do I play video games on it.
Curiously enough, as I was browsing phones, the one that caught my eye claimed to have a 'Built in flashlight'. Of all the whiz-bang features in cell phones these days, for some reason that one appealed to me the most. One day Ill be trapped in an underground cave with a bunch of cheerleaders, and as they sob and desperately try to get onto the web and fail because they cannot get a signal, my trusty flashlight cell phone will save the day. And then a bunch of cheerleaders will show me their gratitude in the form of freaky sexual favors. Oh yeah.
I still have to actually cancel my t-mobile phone. I do not actually have a contract so canceling it should be no problem. I just do not want to have to call customer service to do it. I do not know where t-mobile gets their reps. I think they grow them in vats in some dark back room, and while they are still in a mushy gelatinous state that shove them into a cubical with a telephone. Then I will unwittingly call. I predict the conversation to be like this:
ME: Hello, I would like to cancel my phone account.
REP: BLOOORB! GLOOBGLOOB-FLUB-WUB-DOINGY-GLOP!
ME: Uuuhh... yes?
So, we'll just have to see how that goes.
I got my cat back...$140 for a friggin infected cut. Stupid cat, should have let his ear rot off. Plus I have to give him medicine now. Wrestling a cat to shove an eyedropper down his throat is always a lot of fun.
I'm going to get a beer tonight. Yessir.
2026 Update
Dialing the infernal machine to November 2006, where Ed is dancing on tables and dreaming of a flashlight phone.
Ah, 2006, when freedom meant getting out of a scare-season gig, and 'web on a phone' was a punchline. Things have rearranged themselves since. Your thirty-thousand laughed-at faces are now recording themselves on social media and laughing back at us. That forty-dollar T-Mobile bill is adorable; today we pay the equivalent of a small mortgage for a phone that is mostly a subscription portal and a camera, and the built-in flashlight has become a sacred right you dare not question. Camera phones stopped being crappy around the same time we started pretending every cheap wall is 'artisan gray laminate.' You ditched AIM on your phone, and now AIM is a museum piece while the entire web rides in our pockets, demanding attention like a tiny swarm of demonic personal assistants. The customer-service vats haven't improved; they just added a robot that says 'Your call is important to us.' And the vet bill? I suspect an infected cat ear will always cost more than the phone it interrupted, and the eyedropper battle remains eternal.
“2006 Ed, when you finally called T-Mobile's vat-grown representative, did the gurgling escalate to a full BLOORB, and was the flashlight phone worth all those cheerleaders' tears once you realized you'd still have to wrestle the cat for the eyedropper afterward?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I wish I could tell you the vat-grown rep went full BLOORB, but honestly it was more of a damp squelch with a side of hold music. I think I heard a distant GLOOBGLOOB right before she asked for my PIN, then it was over. Anti-climactic, like most things. As for the flashlight phone, I never bought the damn thing. I ended up with a pre-paid that has no flashlight, and now when I think about those cheerleaders trapped in a cave, they can just sit in the dark with their useless web browsers. And the cat? Oh, the cat still gets his eyedropper, but only after I wrap him in a towel like a burrito. He hates me, I hate it, we both survive. So no, no freaky favors, just me and a beer and a very offended cat. Take that, T-Mobile.
