The Cell Phone Debacle

                When I came to Korea, I didn’t have a cell phone and not having a cell phone was like going on summer vacation: at first, I couldn’t get used to it then I got used to it, and I started to enjoy it.  I had phantom vibrations for weeks and when I rushed an eager palm to my pocket I would remember, Oh wait…I don’t have a cell phone anymore.  For a time I was complacent and enjoyed the freedom from phone calls and text messages; but, like the closing of summer, that complacency was coming to an end.  Soon I was washing phone numbers on bar napkins that I would keep in my pocket and forget about, I was making new friends and unable to coordinate lunch…I was realizing how important a cell phone was going to be in Korea.  I dreaded the realization, but I knew: I needed a cell phone.
                One of the teachers I replaced gave me his pre-paid phone, and I wanted to put more money on it, but that was a stressful and unsuccessful pursuit.  No amount of times, with cash in hand, was I able to register the phone to my name at the cell phone store.  Sure, there was a language barrier between me and the guys behind the counter, but I was waving green ₩10,000 bills in the their face and giving unscrupulous stares—Just put the minutes on the phone and I’m outta here!  No more foreigner in your store, c’mon, do it!  I want to give you money—take my money—put the minutes on the phone.

                (NOTE: Foreigners in Korea have to use pre-paid phones, in general, because their visas don’t allow them to stay for more than a year and cell phone contracts are at least a year; more often than not, a couple years.  E2 visas limit the person to 12 ½ months; as a result, foreigners teaching English don’t often get cell phone contracts or credit cards.)

                Three failed attempts frustrated me and I felt cursed.  I was furious and shamed, so I asked a co-worker, Hank, to help me.  We went to a different shop (which was probably for the best because I left the original shop mumbling obscenities and ruthlessly starred at the employees any time I passed by) and the same problem persisted: they couldn’t put money on the phone because the last person who had the phone did not switch the phone to my name before they left—now the phone was useless.  (Currently, the same phone is a paper weight in my room.  It’s still useless.)  I knew that I would eventually get a phone, but until I had one I felt like I was the animal at the zoo: I could look out through the bars, but that was it.  I was totally restricted.

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                There is an asterisk to this story because I wasn’t totally without a working cell phone…  At some point, as I battled with the staff at the cell phone store, a friend of mine, Denise, gave me her old cell phone.  It was a little nicer than the phone I had, but it was bright pink.  Hell no, I thought, I’m not about to start using a pink cell phone.  Denise reminded me that I could change the pink cover, but I decided to waste my time…

When I hit rock bottom of my cell phone withdrawal, I e-mailed Denise and got the pink cell phone working.  Actually, Denise did all the talking, I sat there looking stupid and defeated, but in the end I had a working cell phone.  Sure, it’s pink—it’s still pink, I should say, I haven’t changed the pink cover (I doubt I will)—but the phone works.  Every once in a while some jerk in a bar makes a comment and I say to them, “whatever, I’m not from around here, someone was nice to me and they gave me their old cell phone, I can live with pink”.  My students at the English academy laugh at me and ask if I’m gay.

 “I’m not gay,” I tell them, “I have many girls’ numbers in this phone,” at which point I defiantly close my phone and the cover twinkles with shining lights.

My dad told me once, “A car is for getting from point A to point B, that’s it,” and I apply the same logic to cell phones: “A cell phone is for making calls, that’s it.”  Whether it’s sparkly, manly, old, or expensive, all that matters is that I can make a phone call or send a text message.  All things considered, I can’t complain about my pink phone… except that my ringtone is still Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”…yeah, I’m not gonna change that either.