It enrages me to live in a city that doesn't have decent cell phone coverage. Talk about first world problems, but there shouldn't be a single spot in the metro Atlanta area that isn't bathed in 4G. Sweet, fast, cancer-causing 4G.
See, the problem with technology is that it raises expectations.
Now, back in 2003, I didn't even want a cell phone. I was like, "I don't like talking on the phone, anyway. That's money that I could be spending on wrestling t-shirts." But you know how that story ended. My then-girlfriend would convince me to get one, because in those days, I was powerless against a pretty face. You wouldn't believe the stupid decisions I made back then. And thanks to those stupid decisions, nowadays, I cannot be swayed, much to my girlfriend's chagrin. Pretty brown eyes or not, I'm not buying you a brand new shoe collection (Note: she doesn't really want a new shoe collectionOW STOP HITTING ME).
But in those suckerish days, I couldn't say no, and within four months, I was already on my second phone, because I couldn't take the first one outside of the county without losing all coverage. Two phones, and damn near $300. And I didn't even want the thing.
Even still, I figured I'd have that phone for the next 50 years. Then, they introduced text messaging and I no longer had to pretend that I was interested in talking on the phone. And 3G and 4G internet after that, which made it so I no longer had to leave the bathroom when I wanted to look up the names of those other three Thundercats on Wikipedia. Just like that, I was in fat ass heaven.
I didn't even want all of this crap originally. But the phone companies kept making things better, and cheaper, and faster. They made all of these promises in a world where I was happy being able to avoid all phone calls simply by walking outside. Antisocial loners like me could vanish for hours or days at a time and no one thought it strange until bodies started being found by the police.
Now, if I'm not connected to the grid during every waking moment, I feel like I missed something. If I was made to choose being able to read Twitter every day and losing contact with some of my relatives forever, it would be Twitter all day. I might not have been close to some of those relatives, but I need to know how Roland Martin is dealing with his six nieces. I need to know what snarky response Bomani Jones is going to have for that stupid-ass question in his feed. And what of the ongoing Jemele Hill/Michael Smith t-shirt war? I AM RIVETED.
And you did this to me, phone companies. Now that I have it, it needs to work all the time.
But that isn't the case, is it, T-Mobile? It's 2013, we got folks talking about sending people to Mars, we got glasses that show the internet, motion activated video game systems...basically, we live inside the first 20 minutes of "Back to the Future Part II," and I can't even go to Lawrenceville without hitting a dead spot, can I, Sprint? Twenty minutes outside of Atlanta, and I'm back to the Stone Age with no reliable 3G/4G coverage. I'd understand if I was out in Winder, because civilized man has yet to reach out that far, but Lawrenceville has its own freeway, and two stadiums within spitting distance. There should be a cell phone tower on every corner, like in every dystopian future.
So someone needs to get this fixed, because one thing I do know: I don't want reliable coverage bad enough to have to pay Verizon every month.
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