BEST One Hour in a Verizon Store EVER

I left my phone charger in Albuquerque. For the normal person, this might not have been a problem, but the phone I had is a very special one. Apparently, when Verizon made it, they only made approximately 50 of them and then immediately broke the mold for both the phone and charger so that it could never be reproduced or mass marketed to anyone else. After a series of increasingly desperate messages left with the hotel housekeeping and slowly watching my phone fade down to it's last bar, it was time to take action. I was going to go to the Verizon store and get a charge or charger, come hell or high water. This is America! I need to be in touch!

Which is how I found myself waiting to speak to a sales representative on Monday afternoon. I first tried the service counter, where the twenty something (Let's call him "Skip" - he was one of those perky annoying people who seem like they should be named Skip) behind the counter acted as if though my phone was a rare archaeological discovery. "Whooooaaa… I haven't seen one of these before!" as he gingerly held it up to examine it. He then proceeded to confirm that there was no way for me to get a charge - the store didn't sell chargers like that anymore, and they certainly wouldn't keep such a relic laying around. Then, to prove just how ancient my phone was, Skip proceeded to call the Verizon warehouse and confirm that they also did not have any way to charge my phone. Here's how that went:

Me: Skip, let's stop all of this before the warehouse. You don't need to call them.
Skip: Oh, I know, I just want to see if they even carry stuff for phones this old.

After confirming that I am a complete and utter loser for having a phone that was bought (gasp) two years ago, I was put on the list of people waiting to speak to a sales representative and told to wait. I used my waiting time by wandering around the store, and picked out a phone that appeared to be mass produced.

I went back to service desk and Skip and said "Is there anyway I can skip speaking to a sales rep and just buy a phone?". He looked at me with his big eyes and dopey smile and said, "How will we help you pick out the perfect phone then?" Needless to say, there was no reasoning with Skip and his infallible customer service logic.

So, I waited forty #@(%&'ing minutes before I was helpfully helped by another customer service representative just like my buddy Skip.

I'm pretty sure that the glint of crazy in my eye dissuaded him from attempting to up-sell me on any of the stupid extras that they offer… after forty minutes of wasted time in the middle of a hectic Monday afternoon, I was ready to rip the cell phone off the belt of any toolbag that so much as mentioned the words "Bluetooth".

Anyway, with my $100 credit for having such an ancient phone, and the $50 rebate, I find myself owning a Razr free and clear. It has a camera. I asked the sales representative if there was any way to get a phone without a camera and he looked at me like I was from a different planet and said, "Why wouldn't you want a camera?" I'm pretty sure it would have totally blown his mind to know that I already have a camera that wasn't attached to a telephone and sort of like the idea of having separate devices for making phone calls and taking pictures.

The Razr is entirely too cool of a phone for someone like me to own (and as Emmmmm pointed out, "It's also way flatter than you"). The Razr is a phone that is too cool to have more than one vowel in it's name, the Razr is the type of phone that should be owned by people named Kym who go to swanky bars and do swanky things and smoke with cigarette holders and say things like, "My Razr phone and I summer in Instanbul".

Call me!