I sort of had a cell phone in high school. My parents would make me take one of theirs whenever I went out; their motives were largely based on its usefulness as a homing device. I grew to mildly loathe cell phones—mostly the slavish ties to their own customized rings. Heck, I'm already reluctant to answer the regular phone, let alone a cellular one that can "miraculously" receive calls around the globe.

When I first came to school, my mom rattled off a litany of reasons why I should get one, and I refuted each one methodically and logically. To call home when I'm running late? Nobody would be monitoring my daily activities, or even be worried if I didn't come back straight after class or rehearsal or practice. Safety? The Palo Alto Weekly's police blotter reports things like "Menlo Park, 6:14pm. Man on public bench reported making lewd gestures at woman." and "Mountain View, 10:02pm. Possession of marijuana." for lack of real crime.

Well, now I've got one. This makes me feel like a big, fat hypocrite. I'm justifying this to myself by arguing that it just plain saves time money: my cousin Maria's going to Taiwan for the rest of the summer, rendering hers useless, so she mailed it to me for the free long-distance minutes since I can't exploit Stanford's 4-cents-a-minute evening rate at Dire Wolf. In the past week, I've talked to a handful of friends from home. But today I needed to call a family friend about picking up my brother at SFO, but wanted to take a short lunch break so that I could leave earlier in the afternoon. So I left a message on her voicemail while walking from Meyer to Tresidder, my crocked neck garnering stares from half the people who walked by, and mirroring those of the other half. Yuck. I have become the person I hate.

At least I'll never ride a bike while on the phone. I hope.

The USPS is bringing it back to New Jersey come mid-September.