Helpful Contest: Verizon 0, Little Baby 1

My phone did this.

I know, I know, owning a flip phone wasn't going to get me invited to the big dance. But voices came in and out of it and it told me the time and we lived a happy life together. Just one day at a time. I won't say we had love, me and my flip phone. But it was . . . it was something like it.

Then, suddenly, she's lying there in my arms, broken in two. O, how I wept.

So I went to Verizon and said, hey, I'm going to get the new iphone when it comes out because I hear it will be magic, so how about you loan me some old phone you've got laying around until then.

Verizon furrowed its brow and clucked its tongue and looked embarrassed for me and shook its head, no. A thousand and one times no.

Uhm . . . I hate to admit this, but back in the day I was forced to dabble in the cell phone sales-sphere. And loaning old phones in cases like this was pretty standard.

I understand Verizon not wanting to hand out phones for free. I get that. And they get money from me every month, which I've been thinking of giving to some other company.

Malia, my friend Dave's daughter, is somewhere in the one-year old demographic and plays with her grandma Linda's old cell phone – which is Verizon, and is an awesome shade of pink.

There are other factors, but hear this, Verizon: had this infant not loaned me her toy phone, I may have jumped ship and gone with another carrier.

My customer loyalty hinges on the fact that you get better service out in the woods and if I ever give myself a flesh wound with an errant swipe of the chainsaw, then your expensive service might be worth it.

But I don't know. Now you've got me stealing toys from kids. This might be too far.

Update:

Just got this from Verizon.

Loyalty discount. Good one, Verizon.

Or, I could go with Baby Malia's wireless service, even if it just involves a network of Speak & Spells and baby monitors.