Woe, depression, and angst. Those are the components of any modern drama, at least those which appear on the Fox Television Network. Yet this is not a TV drama, nor a dramatization of real life events for entertainment purposes. It is a tale of a broken cell phone, and one man’s path to redemption in light of a lost receipt and a lost temper.
It was a dark and stormy Tuesday afternoon. Nothing bad can happen on a Tuesday, right? Right. At least if you’re Timothy McHadden, that’s what you’d believe. Timothy McHadden recently purchased the $350 (with two year service agreement) camera/video cell phone that also plays mp3s, integrates with his computer, and unlocks the pay channels on his cable box.
Nothing bad ever happens on a Tuesday. Timothy got ready for work according to a strict ritual: put on the shirt, put on the pants, put on the belt, put on the socks, put on the shoes, take off the shoes, take off the pants, put on clean underwear, put pants back on, put on shoes, make the toast, pour the OJ, ingest orally in under three minutes, kiss the wife, kiss the kids, kiss the wife again, get into the Volvo, leave.
Drive to the freeway, fight the traffic, honk the horn, get off at exit 139b, stop for coffee, slip in the back door, avoid the boss, pretend to have been there all morning. Nothing bad ever happens on a Tuesday.
“Well, McHadden, that’s a fancy new phone you’ve got there. What happened to the old one?” a sly observer at the office offered. Timothy explained that the old phone would no longer hold a battery charge for longer than a few hours, rendering it practically useless. Timothy let all the other co-workers “Oo” and “Ah” at the technological wonder of his new phone. It was like Christmas and he’d gotten the shiniest new toy. Nothing bad ever happens on a Tuesday.