I wrote this in what seems like 2004, or thereabouts, while sliding cell phones were the new thing, and just came out. My sister wanted a slider cell phone and we were looking to upgrade our phones relatively soon. The following is an account of what had happened:

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Well the whole reason behind the cell phone upgrade thing in the first place is because my sister’s cell phone didn’t have the screen working anymore, cause she dropped on the cement.

Anyhow, my mom spent an hour today at her lunch break finding out about all the stuff.

Today after she got home, we spent about 2 hours to go and look at phones, me, my sister, my mom, and my sister’s friend came along too

While we were there, we were lookin at all the phones, and then when the sales guy came over to talk to us, he said that if we upgrade to “GSM” we’d have to replace all of our phones, which were “TDMA.”

My sister wanted a “slider” phone, especially one that she had “seen on MTV.”

My mom was fine with her phone, the TDMA one, she didn’t really care to upgrade, it was for my sister that we were there in the first place.

So we have to all upgrade to the GSM system, which means getting new phones and paying for them. Through the course of my sister’s constant blabbering about a slider phone she saw on MTV that she couldn’t describe, she asked if one of the computers at the front desk had internet access.

The guy said yes, and then she said “go to sliderphone.com.” Which is pretty stupid in itself.

So, getting 4 new phones is a lot of money, if each of them is like 100-150 dollars each. The slider phone that my sister wanted is like 200 or something. And we find out that it isn’t even FOR AT&T (which is what we have), but for Verizon only. So the whole thing was pretty stupid after having spent so much time discussing about her stupid slider phone.

So then my mom asks the guy more questions, and then she writes down some phone and model numbers of what we are probably going to decide on getting.

Of course, my sister, being unsatisfied, was pushing my mom so that she could get a slider phone.

She was like “is it possible if you 3 were on AT&T and I was on verizon?” Stupid things like that.

And it finally got to the point that my mom got really mad at her, because my sister constantly kept pushing her to get the goddamn slider phone.

Before she got really mad though, my mom was going to check out Verizon and see if it was a better deal. If it wasn’t, she wasn’t going to do it, because she was happy with AT&T. The only reason she would switch to Verizon would be for the costs, and also because we get shitty reception here for ATT.

SO, we get home, and then my sister doesn’t thank my mom at all, and just goes into her room.

My mom says “you don’t even say thank you for me having to spend so much time for doing all this?”

My sister doesn’t say anything and just closes the door to her room.

Even after my mom told her to say thank you, my sister didn’t say thank you. Which is real bad because, basically, you do what you’re told when it comes to the parents telling us stuff to do.

Later on, about half an hour later I say thank you to my mom for “offering me to be able to have my phone upgraded.”

Also, later, I found out the reason why my sister doesn’t say thank you later on when my sister went out to the living room to talk to her. She said its because she “doesn’t like being told to say thank you, she wanted to do it later” like that would really make it better, which it didn’t, it just made it worse cause she waited so long.

And then my mom and my sister talk blah blah blah, and then my sister says “well, why doesn’t david have to say thank you?” and then my mom said “he already did. Its YOU the reason why I’m doing all this anyhow. If I told David he couldn’t get an upgrade, he would just say ‘ok’ and not care. But with YOU, you just have to keep on pushing and pushing.”

And then they hug, and that seems like it may be the end of it.

But it isn’t.

They talk some more, and they travel over to my sister’s room, and when they finish talking, my sister mutters something like “i don’t understand why I can’t get a slider phone” or something like that as she goes into her room.

And that did it for my mom, she started yelling at her saying that she was spoiled, and she couldn’t get everything she wanted, blah blah blah.

So then, my mom left and then closed her door, waiting outside her room to see if she would say anything.

Guess what happens. My sister starts CRYING. It wasn’t loud, but she was crying.

And then my mom goes back into her room and says “what is WRONG with you? You’re FOURTEEN, you don’t NEED a cell phone, let alone a slider phone” blah blah blah blah, and then it ends up with my mom basically saying “you’re spoiled, you pushed me so much with this stupid slider phone thing, I’m gonna punish you by taking your cell phone away. For a year.”

My mom leaves the room, and then she starts crying even more. Me and my mom are just standing outside the room, and I’m laughing because she’s crying over a stupid phone.

Just when my mom is about to walk away, my sister says something like “fuck” and something else, and then my mom goes back into her room and says “did you just curse??” and then more talking, and then she says “here’s your fucking phone. dammit” and then she throws it back onto my sister’s bed.

My sister probably pouts for another half an hour or something at this point.

She doesn’t come out to say sorry or anything to my mom. My mom had to have me CALL her over to my mom.

She gave her a lecture about how she isn’t looking at it in perspective, because its “JUST A PHONE” and she talks about how she spent a lot of her time today trying to figure out what we were going to do with our phone plans.

Then my mom asks her why its so important.

“Why is it so important to you? Is it a STATUS SYMBOL or something? Is it going to make you popular or something? Are people gonna talk about how you’re the only one in the whole school who has a slider phone ‘hey did you hear Kristin has a slider phone, boy she’s so cool’? It doesn’t make SENSE that i have to go through all of this just because of a phone.”

Then my mom says “the only reason I would THINK about changing companies is if it was a better deal, not so that I could get you a slider phone. And even if I did, there’s no guarantee I would get you one”

blah blah blah more talking and then my mom says “are we done talking about this?” my sister says “yes” and then goes back into her room

the end

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A seemingly revolving theme is my sister always wanting a cell phone that is cool or what someone else doesn’t want. More recently, when we were upgrading our phones again she wanted the Motorola Q Black or something like that. A 500 dollar phone which also requires a data plan which we don’t even have. Dumbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.