Smart Phone, Dumb Customer

I am old enough to remember when there was one kind of telephone and one telephone company.

Nevertheless, despite my better judgment, I recently just got a new phone, and I have some—no, a lot—of questions about it, mainly why doesn’t it look and work exactly like my old phone?

I also have some questions about my new phone bill, which my phone company, which apparently prefers to be called my wireless carrier, prefers to call my billing statement, because it’s clearly too difficult for my communications company to communicate clearly.

My billing statement from my communications company is eight pages long. (Yes, I still get a paper statement that completely confuses me because it’s preferable to an online statement that completely confuses me.) It takes me longer to read the eight pages about my phones than it takes me to make most of my phone calls, except for the ones where I get an automated voice mail menu and can’t get a human to talk to me despite screaming for 15 minutes “REPRESENTATIVE — GET ME A REPRESENTATIVE. PLEASE GET ME SOMEONE WHO BREATHES!’

(Parenthetically, screaming “GET ME A REPRESENTATIVE” at an automated robotic voice that continues to robotically run through its menu options which, you know, have recently changed, has been shown in laboratory studies to be equally ineffective but may result in a kidney stone.)

My billing statement breaks down my calls, my texts, my data downloads and, I think, how many calories I’ve consumed since lunch. It separates the different phone lines on my account by number, alphabetically by line owner and possibly by favorite movie.

Still, despite all this information, I continue to have questions.

If I am eligible for a free upgrade to a new phone, why does the free upgrade cost $199 plus surcharges? Does the word free mean something I don’t think it means? Could it mean “not free”?

If I downgrade to a new phone or even to an old phone, then will my carrier pay me that $199 plus surcharges? Hey, if that doesn’t work, can I just take the credit and use it to fly to Paris?

Should I be grateful that my “free upgrade” also comes with “no fees,” as long as you don’t count the “device payment activation” fee?

What device does the device payment activation fee actually activate? Why would I upgrade to a new phone if I didn’t want to activate it? I don’t activate my refrigerator when I open it looking for Greek yogurt. Why does my phone bill use the word activate when it really means turn on?

How come the word surcharge appears nine different times on my phone bill? Is there really a Telecom Relay Srvc Surchg or are they just making that up to see if I was paying attention?

Does the “universal service surcharge” mean I can call anywhere in the universe? Or does it mean I can just receive calls anywhere in the universe as long as the call is mobile-to-mobile and on a night or weekend and with a member of my immediate family but not an in-law?

And why are they surcharges and not just plain charges? Is surcharge just a British affectation? I want to ask: are you really an American company? If so, you should know the name of the capital of North Dakota — what is it?

And most of all, if my plan includes unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and so much data that I can’t fit it into the downstairs front closet anymore, then why do you need to spend eight pages tracking all of that?