Wake up, it's Geronimo!

The leg’s doing nicely. Thanks for asking!

But now, I’d like to complain about my cell phone. I woke up yesterday at 5 AM for my normal 90 minutes of calisthenics and pancake breakfast. I was standing in the kitchen when I heard a voice coming from the living room. No one’s up at 5 AM, so I thought it was the TV turning itself on again. When I limped in, I heard the voice more clearly. “You have an incoming call. You have an incoming call.” My cell phone’s somehow been designed to out-annoying the regular models.

So I know the call’s not for me, but I pick up anyway just to shut the voices up. The caller says “Hey! Geronimo!” I have to take messages at 5 AM for someone named Geronimo? “Naaaah, he’s not here now. This is Crazy Horse.” The phone number’s had a rich history, passing from someone named Rich to a fellow named Ed to a 19th Century Apache, then to me.

Then this morning, I realized that the phone had been vibrating its battery down all night, frantically trying to wake me from downstairs so it could deliver its new text message. It just really needed to tell me this important bulletin from the Important Enough To Bug People’s Phones Desk of MSNBC. I flip open the phone to see this vital story, and there it is:

From: 676800000000
Breaking News: Landmark decision
8:29pm 8/5/03

So we’ve just used half the phone’s battery to tell me “Landmark decision.” Great! Could you be a little less specific? Did we choose a new Pope? Did the Empire State Building decide to run for California governor? This is worse than meaningless – it’s meaninglessly annoying.

At least I’ve finally figured out how to do situps with a bad leg.