Connie O'Reyes

As promised to my faithful follower Patty, here is a story of my new Blackberry, with a very sad twist of fate. I also posted it on the Royalty page here: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye-royalty/2009/12/one-cracked-out-blackberry.html

Warning: The following post is absolutely devastating. If you do not enjoy reading depressing articles, specifically ones where snazzy handheld devices get destroyed, please do not continue.

I’m not typically one who needs the biggest and best. I cut coupons, shop at Target for most of my fashion needs, and am not ashamed to admit my TV is not a flat screen.  However there is one material possession that I always seem to need to have the top of the line model, and that is my phone.

My desire first began back in grammar school, when pagers were the latest and greatest thing. No, I was not a Doogie Howser type child prodigy where I needed to be paged for emergency heart transplants, nor did I sell illegal narcotics on the streets.  It was just the cool thing to have  for some reason.  I BEGGED and PLEADED for my parents to buy me one, arguing my case that they could get in touch with me whenever they needed. (Although, they were the ones who drove me from school to volleyball practice to home, so I’m not exactly sure how I won that argument.) This is where my obsession all began.  From the pager my natural progression developed into my first cell phone, the infamous Nokia that played “snake” and had an antenna that you could pull out to get even crappier reception. Next was a slew of better ring tone-equipped technology that grew smaller and trendier at the same time.  I remember when I first signed up with my carrier Verizon and they told me about the “new every two” where you can upgrade to a new phone every two years.  Surely, I wouldn’t need this, I just bought the greatest phone ever! Nothing could top my [insert prehistoric phone model here]!

 My latest phone to date was my LG Dare, which was getting the job done, and had some cool features as well like a touch-flip-screen that allowed me to text at record speed. But lately, (around month 15-I barely made it a full year) it just wasn’t enough. I caught myself eyeing Blackberry users on the train and questioning my crackberry friends whether they preferred their old phones to their new devices.  Then the deal breaker came when my boyfriend AC (who, by the way actually NEEDED a Blackberry for email communication rather than incessantly checking his twitter… like myself) bought one for work. I lasted about two months before the green-eyed monster of jealousy took over and I caved. Blackberry Tour-ACTIVATE!

 Cut to 9 days later…Blackberry Tour-DEACTIVATE!

 APPARENTLY, Blackberry’s are sensitive. No one told me this. I, the person who likes to toss their phone in frustration and doesn’t even bat an eye when my phone jumps out of my pocket onto the sidewalk, was not informed of the sensititvity. However, I swear on all things LCD, I did not even DROP the damn thing and have no idea what caused it to look like this when I pulled it out of my pocket:

It is a mystery. Perhaps I half sat on it? Rubbed it the wrong way? Perhaps a bird flew by and the wind brushed to harshly against the screen? Who knows. But now, according to the sales peeps at Verizon, I have to pay $89 dollars even though I have insurance to get a new crackberry minus the crack.

 Sigh. Now I’m off to search crackberry.com to see if there’s a way to get around the $89 fee considering that I haven’t even gotten my refund back.  Pity comments or blackberry horror stories to which I can commiserate with would be greatly accepted below. Or if you wish to make a donation to the “Connie needs a Crackberry” fund, DM me on Twitter @CisforConnie =D