It's... um... pink.

MY NEW PHONE CAME IN! What's the number? I don't know. I have to sign up for service now.

I got myself an unlocked phone for one reason: I don't have to be married to a company for service. See, I thought the worst thing about contracts is that you have to pay $150 or more to break them early. Reasonable, I figured, since they're putting out $150 rebates to make the phones practically free. Hell, I pay more on a nice dinner than some of these cell phones.

What I didn't know is that the phone you buy from the wireless serivce company is LOCKED to use only them. So even if you pay the early termination and say "FUCK Y'ALL, I'M GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE" you'll learn that your phone is no good elsewhere. Worse yet, since my Sprint PCS phone DOESN'T WORK I can get it replaced IF I sign a contract extention, pay like $50, and I'll still lose all the stuff on it since I have to turn in my phone before I get a new one. With unlocked phones I just take the SIM card from the phone that doesn't work and plug it into another unlocked phone. Takes 10 seconds, all it costs me is the new phone. And you can pick a cheap unlocked phone for like $120. Yeah, it'd be a crummy phone, but at least you're

free
free
free
free

of the tyranny. Sort of. SIM cards work on phones tuned to GSM, which is a protocol and set of frequencies that the ENTIRE WORLD USES. But in the US we have something else called CDMA and have a lot of networks on it (Sprint, Verizon, MetroPCS, etc etc). Nextel uses something totally different and fucked up by the way. Like monkey turd radiation reflecting off the gooey caramel core of the earth or some shit like that. Right now that means my unlocked phone will work with Cingular and T-Mobile only. BUT since it's a world standard I expect more companies soon.

And since the phone isn't free I'm wearing the kid gloves with it. Wrapper? Check. Plastic film cover? Check. We'll see if I'm going to be anal about it. Probably not. But I know this phone isn't going to be one I just shove in a pocket.

...

I will clearly wear it hooked on a manly Rambo-sash between my extra machine gun bullets and my grenades.

So I order this phone and it gets here. I also order a Bluetooth headset to go with it. Hell, I always thought Bluetooth was cool but I never wanted to pay a billion dollars to try it out. The phone had it ANYWAY so I just tossed another $45 in the shopping cart for a headset. I had a coworker with Bluetooth built into his CAR and when he got a call he just pressed a button on the console and it picked up the call automatically and he heard them through the radio and he spoke on the speakerphone. Very cool. My car doesn't have that... but considering it has 70,000 miles on it in less than 4 years...

I open the phone. Cool cool cool. It's dark blue and I have a extra gray faceplates. I open the box with the headset. Dang, lots of packaging. I see the box. I pull it out, look at it and go, "wait, what? Is that... pink? It's... um... pink."

Pink headset.

No no, look.

PINK headset.

PINK headset.

Aw, man. I look at the return policy. I have to pay for shipping back. IF they want to give me a RMA. And even then, what other color will they send me? Puke Yellow? Pus-filled-blister Ivory? A goddamn rainbow? The picture on the site showed a MANLY black and did not mention anything about picture may vary.

But... it's supposed to be a really good headset. Best around. And it was $45. The "best around" headset the next level up is like $90. I've got an excess of cash lately because I reduced my laptop payments to like $20 instead of $100 for the past few months (to stretch out that 0% interest for the full 24 months), but I don't want to necessarily THROW it away.

I wonder if I can disassemble it and paint it chrome? That would totally rock. But I don't want to break it in the process.

You can respect a man that has a pink Bluetooth headset, right? RIGHT?!

I see.

Well, if it's any consolation, I really want a kiss today, too. I don't know what it is, necessarily. But my lips are a'squirmin' tonight.

...

Perhaps I should quit now before it's too late.