Beep...............Beep...........

Beep..................

I swear. Every five minutes. Like it was on a timer or something!

It is. But still!

For the life of me, this cell phone is beyond my comprehension. I got this thing barely a month ago, and still, I cannot figure the thing out. I can answer a call. I can hang up. Most of the time, I can text message, although at times, it will not send for some reason.

Supposedly, I can send pictures.

This is impossible. Paul and I have tried everything. We have activated something called Bluetooth, which Andy says helps my phone make new friends with other things (or at least that is how I understood it) and teaches it to share. My phone does not work and play well with others. It also must be some kind of Existentialist, because it refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything beyond itself.

And then there is the beeping.

On my old phone, which the company gave out for free (so it was cheap and crappy) I could tell I had missed a call because the little rubber handheld-things on the sides would gently flash with colored light. I would smile, undo the keylock, and check who had called or texted me.
On my new phone, the blasted thing begins to call out to me in the most annoying way possible, atonal beeps, spaced evenly apart in a manner which convinces me that the beeping is over just before it begins again.

Here is what I have tried to make the beeping stop:

1. I have gone into settings and placed Reminders on Silent. This silenced the entire phone.

2. I have silenced everything EXCEPT the ringer. This made everything silent, except for the beeps.

3. I have silenced the phone. This resulted in my inability to find said phone, because it is super-skinny and lightweight, so I cannot find it and calling it results in...more silence. The phone has been lost in my car, purse, room, couch cushions, office, and (somehow) yarn stash.

4. I read ALL the instructions (not just the ones I thought mattered for my problem) in hope that the issue I needed help with was hidden away in Changing the Language of Your Phone or Color Schemes or even Taking Pictures. It wasn't.

5. I prayed.

This last one I am sure will work. If it is the will of God. Maybe. I don't know.
The steps I have not taken:

1. Called Centennial Wireless. Reason: They will just attempt to sell me add-ons or to try to convince me that I need to pay the fees and replace my shiny new phone. Or they will just do what they did when I bought the phone, throw it at me and tell me I'm all set and then escort me out so they can take care of the next customer.

2. Asked Andy to learn my phone and explain it to me. This would be shameful for me, I could not bring myself to so admit defeat. Besides, he has enought technical things to learn without my phone being among them. And then, how would I know how to do it myself? Maybe someday I will want the beeping. Will I be able to bring it back?

I have begun to turn off my phone. For no reason. Also I have begun to leave it in the car, or my purse, or just at home in order to avoid our little disagreement. I don't want an argument. I mean, it is just doing its job. Who am I to judge?

But I just want a little peace. The other night, it wouldn't stop no matter what button I pressed and I had to sleep with it all the way across the house and I STILL could hear it. Then in the morning I realized that I could have just turned the thing off. I was sleepy.

Plus, there is the ringtone thing. I would love to change the ringtone, by downloading something fun and putting it on the phone. But I can't figure out how to make that happen. I can't even find ringtones without them being on sites with porno people on them. This is wrong.

And to make matters worse, people from Dad's work--church--have figured out that I answer my phone way more than him (maybe because part of me hopes that the ringing means I have friends. So I have now become his answering/secretarial service WITHOUT EVEN GETTING PAID FOR IT! In the past week, two people (one of them crazy--I am totally serious--have called me and left messages for him).

As of this moment, I am announcing to the world:

I am not my father!

Nor will I take messages for him not transmitted via the home phone. You know the number.
I do not know, or care, where he is right now. If he comes home, good. But otherwise, it saves time and energy just to assume that he ceases to exist when he leaves our house. Then I don't have to remember whether tonight is prayer meeting or Hands of Hope. Besides, in this family, caring = worry and I have enough to obsess about. So I choose something that will lead to less acidic stomach acid.

I do not want to have to spend twenty minutes assureing you that I am not angry at you for making this mistake. If you want to see me angry, call me from your Sprint phone or landline and suck my minutes dry. Then ask me if I am angry.

I will no longer pick up the phone if it does not tell me who you are on caller id. I paid for that for a reason.

I used to get paid to be a secretary, but I don't anymore. If you would like to employ me to answer your calls and connect you to the appropriate pastor, let me know. We can work something out.

And, finally, Centennial: do not text me with elaborate sales pitches. If I want more minutes or a companion plan, I will come to you. I know where you live. And if you want to keep those blue shirts of yours nice and clean, don't tell me to relax. I'm not angry. But I will be...