This morning, while looking for something to post (despite the continuing weeds) I noticed it was national “Cell Phone Tape Day.”
Now, back when I carried a cell phone – and I admit, it’s been close to a decade since I carried one – breakage was a problem. At the time, I was in-house counsel for a service-provider-who-shall-not-be-named, and a free mobile phone was one of the perks of the job. (It also meant they could reach me any time, any where, for any question from the field, so yeah – these aren’t the perks you’re looking for.) The phone in question was a high end flip-style phone (cutting edge at the time, though it’s the kindergarten model now) and occasionally breakage did happen. Not my phone (it didn’t get used enough) but in the department and especially among the tower techs, it was common to see phones held together with duct tape until the company issued new ones. Nobody paid much attention. If it worked, it worked, and to a certain extent a phone sporting a strip of electrical, duct or other industrial tape kind of said “Hey, I’m a working phone, you don’t like it, Louie and the boys will come explain a few things.”
Since leaving that job, however, I admit I hadn’t seen much cell phone tape. (Haven’t heard them referred to as “cell phones” in a while, either, since most people now call them something else entirely.)
In my deliberately-fostered ignorance of all things mobile-phonesque, I wondered whether a cottage industry had grown up of which I was unaware. Tape to repair broken cell phones, perhaps in a variety of matching colors and/or patterns? (Admit it, in your darkest moments you realize there’s Hannah Montana tape out there somewhere.)
As someone who frequently fails to understand the modern urge to toss out things the moment they get chipped, to say nothing of broken, I admit I was pleasantly surprised. Someone out there not only found a way to fix cell phones, but the idea caught on! The ancient, silver-striped phones of my (relative) youth had given birth to a whole generation of fixers. My heart was proud.
Until I took a closer look at the 2010 holiday list and realized that the observance isn’t today, it’s tomorrow, and it isn’t “cell phone tape day,” it’s cellophane tape day.
And so, in the immortal words of Emily Litella….
… nevermind.
Frankly, I preferred your first reading.
Comment by David — May 26, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
As did I, which is why I went ahead and posted this anyway. Not only was the error more entertaining than the real observance, but Emily Litella gave me the punchline it needed. Win-win.
Comment by Random Yak — May 28, 2010 @ 10:09 am