These are the Droids we're looking for

Sorry, the title was too easy! Can you say pretty? (And heavy!)

We've been eligible to upgrade for several months now, but with all the house nuttiness (buying and selling) plus holidays, we just hadn't gotten around to it. My phone managed to behave long enough for us to get to Disney and back, but the very next day, the screen started being temperamental. My old phone was a flip phone with an inner and (very tiny) outer screen. The outer one still worked fine. The inner one would only decide to come on some of the time when I flipped it open. Sometimes it was solid white, sometimes it was solid black (but still with light, if that makes any sense), sometimes it would only show me an icon or two. Sometimes rebooting would cure it, sometimes not. Yes, I could still make and receive phone calls, but that was about it. DH and I communicate during the day at work largely via text, so not being able to do that consistently was rapidly becoming an issue.

We tried going to the Verizon store Saturday afternoon, but Luke was not behaving very well. (In fact, that was the second consecutive day of behaving badly for him.) We weren't even there for 20 minutes before we had to leave or risk a complete and total meltdown. Not conducive to trying make a decision about what kind of phone (multimedia vs smartphone) and/or what kind of plan. I had long enough to ask about the difference and why I might need one over the other, but that was about it. I had my eye on either the LG enV3 or enV Touch (both multimedia), but DH seemed completely undecided. We also knew that, even if we decided right then, getting them purchased and set up and all would take quite some time, and Luke was a ticking time bomb, so we got a card from the guy who was helping us and promised to return with a better behaved child, if not later that evening, then Sunday (we hoped).

The more we talked Saturday night, the more I realized that DH really wanted a smartphone, which is fine. He has more need for one than I do. If I need to do anything on the web during work, I just hop on my personal laptop; ah, the wonders of working from home! But hubby doesn't really have that luxury, and there are plenty of times that we are out and about when he is doing drafts for one of his fantasy leagues, and the ability to check in remotely would be really great. Is it a necessity? No. Would it be really nice? Sure. We discussed all of this over dinner at our regular Mexican restaurant, where we actually have not been in weeks. (My eyes were bigger than my stomach! I was so happy to be back, I ordered the burrito/taco/beans combo so I could have a little bit of everything. That's the equivalent of 2-3 meals for me. Oops; can you say leftovers?) Turns out, our regular waiter Roderigo had an enV Touch and let me play with it a bit. It was great! So I had decided what I wanted (or so I thought). We decided to go to the store, let DH ask the questions he had about the smartphones, and see how the numbers came out (and whether or not the added cost of the required smartphone plan made us choke).

We went back Sunday after lunch and spoke with Kamal again, this time with DH taking the lead. I chaperoned Luke (we had toys and coloring books this time, and he had a grand time playing with someone else's 9-month old, who loved chasing (crawling) after him). I knew when DH returned to me looking all sheepish that he not only had decided he wanted a smartphone, but he wanted a Droid. Great. Turns out, it wasn't as expensive as I was expecting (he'd already asked), and I could see it's really what he wanted (he really doesn't want or ask for much in this world). Okay, fine, even if I will have phone envy at some point, I'm sure. "You can get one, too, if you want one." Oh, I see, that's how you're justifying it? We went back to tell Kamal that we had decided on one Droid and one enV Touch, at which time Kamal informed us that it would actually be cheaper for us to get two Droids. Um, excuse me? All of the smartphones were buy one, get one free (equal or lesser value), but the enVs are multimedia phones, so they didn't count. So I could pay for an enV Touch if that's what I really wanted, or I could get a Droid for free. Oh, gee, let's think hard about this one! LOL

So that's how we ended up with two Droids. DH has a holster for his, and I have a blue case for mine (I was hoping for green, but the choices were black, red, pink, or blue; no contest). Since DH is a DOT employee, we also got 25% off accessories, so that was a nice little perk. I can tell you that getting used to the QWERTY keyboard versus the T9 is a little frustrating. I'd sent several text messages to my brother before I found the ? key, and I keep fat-fingering the letters. It is also painfully slow right now, but Roderigo assured me that, once you get the hang of it, it is much faster than T9. The hardest thing at the moment is *not* double- or triple-tapping the keys for a letter that you would have had to tap the T9 key more than once to achieve (example: in T9 for the letter c, you tap the 2 key 3 times). Funny how deeply ingrained those habits are after less than 2 years! (I don't think we started texting until we got our previous phones.) I'm sure we'll get the hang of it, though. And if I really don't like it, I can exchange it for up to 30 days. I'd like to think I'll have it figured out by then! LOL

Currently feeling: assimilated (yes, I know that's a borg, not a droid)