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Imagine you have a mobile phone that rarely rings and that you rarely use to call people (because you have few friends, no job, and hate the headache that results from holding the thing to your sensitive head). Imagine that said mobile phone is essentially a text-messaging device (1000 msg/month!). Now imagine that your normal bill is a constant $68.14 without fail.

Are you with me?

Okay, now imagine the horror when you open this month's phone bill to see a total of $152.86. Oh sure, you go through the whole "This can't be right!?" drama. You immediately start dredging up repressed false-memories, "I must have left my phone in the car that night I went to Matsuhisa's for dinner and those damn valet guys called all their friends back in the Bronx." You go and check your email sent box to try to piece together what you may have been doing on the day when these expensive calls start racking up. Nothing. After the denial abates, you very assertively pick up your landline and call T-Mobile. As you are bounced around by the oh-so-diligent voicemail drone ("Hm, let me see if I have that right..You said 'speak with a customer service representative'...") you glance down at the total minutes and see that you've exceeded your 600 minute plan by 50% to a grand total of 900 minutes.

Once the friendly but hoarse customer service rep comes on the line, your bravado vaporizes. "Um..I have a question about my bill," you whimper. And by you, I mean me.

[end scenario of attempting to evoke empathy through projecting my nightmare onto you]

"Well I'd certainly be happy to go over it with you, Mr. Ctrl-Freak, and I do know how shocking it can be when you receive a bill that is much higher than you expected," the perkier-than-possible woman intones, then mechanically babbles through the details of my calling plan, ending with the observation that I surpassed my 600 minutes by 300 minutes resulting in the steep "overage" charge. She points out the obvious - that I may want to up my plan if I expect to be using my phone more.

I consider snarking back "Well, if I expected to use my phone more, I would have increased my minutes before you thieves starting raping me at a rate of $.40/minute," but think better of it.

"Er..Okay, well I'll look over the plans online and get back to you. Thanks for your..uh..help," I squeak pathetically. <>

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I honestly don't know how I could have talked for 900 minutes last month. I literally hate talking on cell phones.

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