Why I'd Rather Have New Socks Than a New Phone

Paul was complaining lately that I want him to get rid of nearly perfectly good socks (for instance, a pair of athletic socks that once had "Kangaroo" woven into the top in green thread, but all the green thread has come out so now they have fascinating letter shaped holes, which makes them raveling nightmares but, as he points out, involves no holes in functional parts of the sock) but do not want to replace my cell phone, despite the fact that it's not entirely reliable for reasons that may or may not be related to the screws that have fallen out of it.

So here's why I'd rather have new socks than a new phone.

Cost

There are $100 socks in this world, but we are far too cheap to buy them. There are also $100 phones in this world, but alas, we are far too picky to buy them. The net result is that a new phone tends to be 50 to 100 times as expensive as a new pair of socks. (Jockey athletic socks, which is to say a name brand, in just the style he likes: 6 pair for $15.00 iPhone: $400. That's a factor of 160.)

Choosing the Replacement

It is usually possible to replace socks with ones just like them. Even when it isn't, achieving what my mother used to call "inoffensif au fond" (fundamentally inoffensive) is not difficult. Any store which sells socks will have socks that are OK with Paul. Most of them will have socks I can put up with. Socks which inspire actual enthusiasm are harder to come by, but I know where to find them.

Of course, this is partly because we like very ordinary socks. I have been known to buy emergency socks at the grocery store. We do not like the same phones that everybody else wants. We want international phones (socks are always equally good here and in other countries, what a concept). We want multi-purpose phones (neither of us can be trusted to carry a phone and a personal organizer, so if you expect us to have phone numbers or calendars with us, they must be part of the phone). We want phones with alphanumeric keyboards, because we type text on them. And we want all of this secure, Macintosh and Linux compatible, and reliable. There is no such phone. Looking for this phone requires deciding how many features you are willing to give up and which ones they are. And then paying a premium price for a phone that ticks you off from the moment you pick it up.

Disposal of Old Item

How to dispose of used socks: throw them away. They are biodegradable. Frankly, they are biodegraded. If the holes are unimportant, you can wash them and make sock animals from them. I happen to own this book on sock and glove animals and I have been wanting to make a sock animal.

How to dispose of the used cell phone. Don't throw it away! It's hazardous waste. You could give it to the child as a toy, but did I mention screws fall out of it? It's not a good toy and it's not a very good precedent, either. You could give it to charity, but it's not very kind when it's not reliable. So, off to the electronics recycling station. I have not been wanting to visit there. Thus what this really means is that it gets piled into the aged electronics pile and looks reproachfully at me.

Configuration of New Item

To ready your new socks for use, remove packaging. Optionally wash.

To ready your new phone for use, remove packaging. Charge phone. (Do not wash it, although let's not discuss how I know that the electronic key for a Prius will survive the washer and the drier.) Now all you need is a phone plan and your data, from the old phone.

You either think that choosing a phone plan is fun, in a puzzle-solving, negotiating sort of way, or you think it is Not Fun, in a I hate trying to figure out how not to get cheated by a large uncaring corporation sort of way. Guess which camp I fall in? Whichever camp you fall in, this involves a significant amount of time on hold with phone companies, which nobody likes. It may also involve a lot of repeating "I wish to cancel my account. Stop begging, pleading, and trying to bribe me. I have a three year old. I can resist this sort of behavior forever." Then you probably have to configure an entirely new electronic payment plan.

As for the data… first you have to get it off the old phone and onto the computer. (Yes, yes, it should all be backed up and up to date. Did I mention my phone is unreliable? It particularly dislikes syncing.) While that is going, you will need to find something else to do, unless you really like watching progress bars. Try not to get distracted!

Then you will need to get the data onto the new phone. That will require software, which you will have to load onto your computer. If you are a weirdo (for instance, you like unlocked GSM phones and have an elderly Macintosh) the version they give you with the phone is not the right version, and often the first one you download isn't the right version either. You could ask the vendor for support, but this is probably not faster than puzzling it out yourself, because the support people think you're a weirdo. You will also have to move the data from the old software, praying all the time that the import process is cool with international phone numbers and whatever other peculiarities you have managed to bury in your address book data. Then you can download it to the new phone and see what happens. Oops, you got distracted, didn't you? That's why it's been sitting there, 5 minutes into the process, waiting for you to give it a name, for the last hour.

User Interface Compatibility

There exist socks with odd user interfaces. Compression socks, for instance, which have to be carefully rolled on. But if you just go out and buy socks, to replace your old socks, they have the same user interface as the old socks. There is nothing to figure out here.

Even if you buy the same phone you used to have, it's the new model. Shiny. New. Different. All new incomprehensible pictures and locations for things. And it's much easier to use -- for somebody. Probably not you, because you know how to use the old one, so you have all the wrong instincts. Oh well. You'll unlearn them all in time. And you can start learning the interface by trying to find a ring tone you can stand, too, since all of those will be new, and you're going to spend the next several weeks if not months trying to answer the cell phones of complete strangers, because they ring the way you're used to, and not yours, because it has some new weird ring.

Cross-User Compatibility

It does happen that I wear Paul's socks. It even happens that he wears mine (we both own black socks, what can I say?). But frankly, this is not an important feature for us.

On the other hand, we both use the car charger for our identical cell phones all the time (we leave it plugged in in the car). We use the same wall-charger, left plugged in on the kitchen counter. When traveling, we use another wall charger, left permanently in the luggage because hey! we have two! And we are the sorts of people who forget to pack a phone charger, given half a chance. So if one of us buys a new phone, all sorts of compatibility havoc arises. Now there are two chargers in the car, two chargers on the counter, and only one in the luggage, meaning I am doomed to forget a charger and have no phone when I travel next. Thus, if I replace my phone, either I suffer, for a good long time, or we replace his phone, too.

Public Interest

Nobody cares if I buy new socks. Seriously, even Opal can only work up a few moment's interest, and that only if there are cute little sock hangers in them.

However, because buying a new phone is traumatic, and involves so many ways in which you can be cheated by large companies, everybody cares if you get a new phone. They want to know how you picked it, was it worth it, is it better than theirs, should they rush out and get a new phone, too? Or, if they are low on social competence (not that anybody involved in computers is low on social competence) they want to explain to you why you chose wrong. Look, I know I chose the wrong phone, because I know there is no right phone. I'm sorry you don't realize there is no right phone, and I'm even more sorry that you're going to tell me why some other phone is righter than this one. Plus I am tragically bored and trying to decide if it's worth it to explain to you why this is dull and tactless. Explaining why I don't want a new phone may make other people's heads hurt (but of course you want a new phone! It's new!) but it gives me a sort of pleasure to watch them trying to figure out whether it's worth continuing to speak to somebody so terminally un-geeky.