Just call me Techno-Impaired...

Thanks to Pat, my cell phone bill may have increased by $30 this month. And it's not because I spent a bunch of minutes talking to Pat on the phone, because, if you follow her daughter, Sara's blog, you would know that Pat, like Sara, doesn't like to talk on the phone. (I won't mention that twice in my life, I have picked up the telephone and filled Pat's ears with tales of woe...and since then, I've learned that she hates to talk on the phone....she's in Michigan, I'm in Pennsylvania and gas ain't cheap...so guess what? In the future, if I need the advice of a friend, she will have to suck it up and endure the dreaded phone conversation.) Anyway....

Today, on Pat's blog, she posted the lyrics to a song by Toby Mac.
Toby Mac? Pat listens to Toby Mac?
wow.

I don't own any of their CDs. Although I am familiar with some of their music, I hadn't yet heard the song that she posted.

When ‘googling’ the lyrics, hoping to find a site with an MP3 file where I could listen to the song, I found this great site where I was going to be able to download the song's ringtone to my cell phone. Cool.

I also found a bazillion other neat ringtones such as the theme songs to some of my favorite childhood TV shows: The Addams Family, The Munsters, Popeye, Little House on the Prairie, (aka Little Shack on the Grassland if you ran in my circle),

Mission Impossible, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone...(okay, anyone who knew me as a child - Mom, you know who you are - will know that I was PETRIFIED of the Twilight Zone opening where that big eyeball appeared on the screen. But, I digress. Again.)

I had so much fun clicking and listening to all the different ringtones, that it wasn’t until I read the fine print in the ‘terms of service’ agreement that I realized I had just committed Brillo Man and myself to paying an additional $30 a month in fees to be a member of all these ringtone ‘clubs’.
Oy-vey!

It turned out that it was a simple fix. All I had to do was text the word “STOP” to the companies and I could opt out of the agreement. Problem. How do I send a text message? As techno-savvy as I like to believe I am, I had never sent a text message - because they cost a whopping 15 cents each - unless you have ‘the plan’ - which we do not.

The first text message “STOP” went to my Aunt Carolyn - since she is the first person in my phone address book and I had no clue (obviously) what I was doing. Aunt Carolyn will retrieve this message from her phone (probably about three weeks from now, knowing how frequently AC checks her cell phone messages...)...and she is going to wonder what in the heck “STOP” means. I’ll get a call. (Of course, if she would read my blog, she would know and could save herself the trouble.)

After a phone call to the cell phone customer service rep, she ‘walked’ me through the proper way to send a text message and thankfully, I was able to prevent the certain-to-be stroke that Brillo Man would have had had he opened the cell phone bill and discovered it was increased by $30, thereby sparing me much grief and him months of rehab...

I considered telephoning Pat to share all of this with her personally....but....she hates talking on the phone.....

..."What is this babbler trying to say?"...
-Acts 17:18 (taken SO out of context, it isn't even funny...)