Cell Phone Meltdown

I was recently eligible for an upgrade on my cell phone, so I decided to switch from my boring old BlackBerry Curve to the BlackBerry Storm2, which is a touch screen and has much cooler browsing capabilities, etc.  The Curve had served me well, but after two years it was starting to have a mind of its own, and I was afraid it would soon be shooting sparks into my ears.  Plus, I needed a new challenge. 

I had the Storm2 for about a week before I was able to work through (well, at least to the point I was functional again) the transition between a regular keyboard and a touch screen keyboard.  One important part of that transition was learning how to turn off the "Autocorrect" feature after I tried to post "Congrats, Kristi" on a friend's Facebook wall and ended up posting "Congests, Kristi" instead.  Rest assured that I was not wishing my friend Kristi would get a cold.  As an aside, for more funny examples of Autocorrect, you should check out http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/.  Although some of them are obviously faked, you will laugh until your sides hurt.

Anyway, back to the Storm2.  I also had a problem with it hanging up on people in the middle of phone calls because apparently my ear or my cheek would press something on the touch screen while I was talking and would cause the call to be disconnected.  This happened at least 6 times in one hour, and that was my first inclination that I might need to return the phone to Verizon.  I mean, the browsing was great, but if I can't actually use it as a phone, what good is it?  I'm not a quitter, though, so I experimented with different ways to hold the phone and finally worked through that issue as well.

Fast forward a couple of days until I'm on my way home from work and try to make a call using the Bluetooth feature in my car.  If you know me well, you know that Bluetooth is one of my favorite features of my car.  I could probably do without power windows before I could do without the ability to make a call hands-free through my car's speakers.  When I'm driving my husband's car for whatever reason, I feel totally disabled and inconvenienced if I actually have to manually answer my phone in the car (either that or I punch feverishly at the steering wheel wondering where the "off hook" button is).

Anyway, I had previously "paired"  my phone with my car's Bluetooth device, and everything seemed to go well.  When I pushed my car's "talk" switch,  however, all hell broke loose.  Generally, when I push the "talk" switch, I hear a tone, and I say a command (like "Dial By Number").  The car then repeats the command back to me to make sure we're on the same page.  Then when I say the number I want to dial, the car repeats that back to me, too.  Well, today when I said, "Dial By Number," the car kept saying "Call Transfer...Transferring Call to Phone."  What?  No!  That's not what I said!  I eventually got her to accept "Dial By Number," and even accept the number a couple of times, but then she would say "Call Cannot be Placed.  Check the Phone."  AARRRGH!! 

I finally had enough of her nonsense and went to Verizon so they could "check the phone."  After about 30 minutes, the girl at Verizon said, "Umm, like, you may, like, want to go to the Lexus dealer because, like, we can't find anything wrong with the phone."  So I went to the Lexus dealership, and they were not extremely helpful either, opining only that, "Maybe this particular phone isn't compatible with your car.  Some phone types aren't."  At this point, I was about to go all Naomi Campbell and beat the crap out of somebody with the phone, and I told the Lexus representative so.  He laughed like he thought I was kidding, but I could tell that, deep down, he was scared.

I had had enough, so I headed back to Verizon with the intention of throwing the Storm2 through their windows with a molotov cocktail attached.  On the way back, I tried several more times to make a call using my Bluetooth, and now my car was just going bat-shit crazy.  When I said, "Dial By Number," she would repeat back "zero-five-one-pound" or some other random set of numbers.  Then I started pressing the "talk" switch and shouting expletives at the car, to which she would respond, "Pardon?", sending me further into a rage.  I AM TRYING TO PICK A FIGHT WITH YOU, B**CH, STOP BEING SO D*MN POLITE! 

By the time I got back to Verizon, I was probably quite disheveled, red-faced, and wild-eyed, because they calmly and quietly took my Storm2 and gave me a new Curve instead (with a $70 refund due to the difference in cost between the phones).  The Curve isn't fancy, but it's familiar, and it is friends with my car.  Thus, I am again friends with both my phone and my car.  Life is good.