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.
Timothy, being ever well-connected and “in the know” as he is, never turned off his new, shiny leash. He got calls everywhere – in the car, in tunnels, on elevators; it was amazing the places he got calls. He took pictures of all the places he’d traveled during his day. During a business lunch, he decided to snap a quick photo of his office buddy Rich.
“Let me see! Let me see!” Rich exclaimed. As it so happened, Timothy accidentally got a snapshot of the girlfriend of the man behind Rich at another table. That darned super-smart new camera phone auto-zoomed and auto-focused to get “The Best Picture Possible.” Timothy figured the camera thought the man’s girlfriend was a better picture than Rich.
Laughing about the camera’s mistake, the gentleman whose girlfriend was the subject of the inadvertant portrait decided Rich and Timothy were oogling his woman. He did not appear happy about the fact. He lunged at Rich and the phone took flight on it’s own. Timothy caught the phone, just in time to video the brawl in which Rich found himself engaged.
Nothing bad could ever happen on a Tuesday. Unless you count a large man with an attractive female companion baptizing your brand new $350 (with two year service agreement) camera/video cell phone in a mug of Genuine Draft(tm).
Timothy found himself in quite a rage. Not only was his day delayed by the visit to the hospital to get Rich released and taken home, but now he’d have to stop at the cell phone store, too.
Five o’clock. It was five minutes to five o’clock. The cell phone store promptly closes at five o’clock. At least that’s what three different sales associates told Timothy as he clung desperately to the customer service countertop. They had told Timothy that there wouldn’t be time to replace his phone today. And even if they did have the time, he didn’t have any of his paperwork with him, and he hadn’t purchased the insurance on his shiny new mobile useless piece of plastic.
Seemingly, the scream of an adult male can be heard up to a mile and a half radius, given a minimum of interference and obstacles, and a healthy set of lungs – which is why it is no suprise that Jimmy Rogers, a fourth grader from San Dutrina Elementary School, peed himself at the bus stop a block down from the cell phone store.
At what seemed to be the last minute, the sales associate who helped Timothy the day before came walking in from the back office with Timothy’s paperwork, and showed the front desk clerk that he does have a 14-day no-questions asked on-site warranty. He would, however, have to come in the next day to get the replacement phone. Nothing bad ever happens on a Tuesday. Except Tuesday, in Timothy’s world.