Telecommunications Conspiracy Exploits Teens…
and enslaves their parents

It's my own fault… I knew I was headed into murky waters when I agreed to get cell phones for the kids.

Of course it started out with getting one phone for the family. We reasoned that when one of my daughters was out, she could have a way to call if there was an emergency.

Soon, one wasn't enough, and as they had a GREAT "special family deal" that would only cost $49 a month and included two more phones, how could I say no? I was already paying $29 for one phone, so what the heck?

Then it became obvious that my wife and I should have phones, because the kids were always trying to reach us when we were in the car, or at work, or at the store, or at the movies, to tell us where they were going to be, or what they wanted for dinner, or that we were out of toilet paper. So, adding two more phones to a new plan (because the new phones were only $50 each and the old plan didn't have enough monthly minutes). It still seemed like a logical decision.

By the time the youngest had reached 14 and argued that SHE should have her own phone if the other daughters had one, we were now into the cell company for close to $150 a month…

WHAT???? We went from $29 to $150 a month????? How did that happen????

Well…the girls decided that they needed a "Text Messaging Plan." For those of you that do not have teenagers, or have more common sense than to even consider finding out what Text Messaging is, let me give you the "xplnashun." Text messaging is how teenagers communicate with one another when they don't want to go to the trouble of calling one another and talking. You write a message, usually using abbreviations for speed and ease of thumb-strain, and it usually is such important messages as…
"howru?"
"K"
"Wassup?
"Nada"
"Tommysohot!"
"hesgr8t!"

They do this in class, they do it in the car, they do it while watching television, and every one of them costs money. So, while they could call one another for free (flat rate unlimited plan)…and have the same conversation in 30 seconds, they would prefer to draw out this important conversation for minutes…the phone vibrating or giving off a special ring-tone every time a message is received, while spending $1 or more just to say "hello…I don't want to talk to you now, ok?"

They have "Text Messaging Plans" that offer bulk-flat rate charges, like 1,000 messages for $10. However, if you go over your plan, they revert back to the .20 per message cost.

I know this. I just opened my cell bill yesterday.

In the forty pages of details about the calls my three teenage daughters made (let the NSA pour over those if they want!) there were $76 in "Text Overage Charges." That means that my daughters decided that it was important to text whatever inane message to a friend they would undoubtedly see later that same day, more than 380 times MORE than the 2,000 text messages on the plan!

Of course, the real stupidity in this story belongs to me. I agreed to let the girls have the text messaging plans with the understanding that they would pay for them themselves. Like allowing them to get a pet that they promise they will take care of, and within a month YOU are feeding and bathing the thing, I have not seen a dime.

Their mother is to blame. She is a pushover, and I bound to her through sexual favor and companionship in a way that I do not wish to jeopardize at this stage of my life. She knows it, the kids know it, and I have a feeling the cell companies know it.

But I am also convinced that my teenage daughters are in collusion with the cell companies, and perhaps the entire telecommunications industry. Here's how I know. Their mother and I still have our clunky, original Nokia phones, with no text plans, no camera, and no video or web capabilities. I have not even looked at the games on my phone and both of us still have the same "dorky" standard ring-tones that were factory installed on the phones when we got them.

My daughters, on the other hand, have the latest Razor and multimedia tech phones. They got them for their birthdays. They cost a TON of money. In actuality, the one with the Razor got hers when the very expensive phone she received for her birthday, crapped out (from too much texting) and the cell company wouldn't replace it. And hey…it was only $75 more than the first one…and it is so Cool...and pretty pink..and nobody else has one...and she was going to pay us back…right?

The second wayI know that it is a conspiracy, is that the reason my college-student, journalist, daughter gave when I asked her about her extreme use of text messaging, was "It's how our generation communicates…you just don't understand!"

I own an Internet Services company…I was on the bleeding edge of almost every new technology to come along for decades… and "I don't understand???"

I understand all right… The Cell Companies are now just like regular phone companies and cable companies and Internet service companies, because they are ALL THE SAME COMPANY! They may have different names…with different profit centers…but they all came about when Clinton sold his soul to the Republicans over a blowjob and allowed telecommunications to become deregulated!

Competition and free trade…my ass!!!

Now I am being held ransom by the cable company who also provides my high speed Internet service and now wants my local dial-up and long distance. The cell company locks me into a two-year plan every time I add or subtract features, and then make the cell phone/blackberry devices a measurement of what is "cool" and necessary, so I am forced to own one, just to keep up with the punks who want my job and my way of life.

They get the kids hooked with Internet freebies like "My Space," (a Rupert Murdoch Company) and then make sure that the "free, secure, your-parents-can't-get-in-here" site is full of advertisements for the latest cell phone technology that will make YOUR phone seem like a rotary dial phone (remember those?) in comparison. But, just like getting a pet, you aren't just getting a cell phone when you sign on. You are marrying the company that provides service. I've seen wedding pre-nups between millionaires with fewer restrictions than these contracts. You are theirs, and if you want a divorce, you are going to PAY!

I pay $150 a month for high-speed cable, and my HDTV cable television package (with HBO, and two separate extensions for TVs downstairs). I pay $150 a month for my family cell phone plan. That is $3,600 a year for something that used to be, for the most part, almost free.

It used to cost $29 a month for a phone. It had a rotary dial. It did not have call waiting or voice messaging. I couldn't watch videos on that phone. If I wanted to "text message" someone, it meant passing them a note in history class.

My childhood television (through my senior year in high school) was a crummy, 24" black and white TV with the plastic channel changer knob broken off. You had to change the channel with pliers, which was not a big deal, because we only had 4 local stations. It was free, other than paying Mr. Stares (my best friend's Dad, and part-time TV repairman) $15 every six months or so to replace a worn-out tube (we always owned used TVs).

The first house I owned at the age of 23, was $18,500. My mortgage payment was $195 a month. That was in 1977. Now…30 years later, that wouldn't even pay for my cell bill and basic cable.

Like everything evil in the world, the slide toward excess always starts with a promotional plan. The digital cable started at $29 and doubled after 90 days. By then I was hooked on HBO. The High-speed Internet package through the same company, started at $29 a month, and then jumped to $69 a month. We added a second computer, and two more televisions, the HDTV package and a DVR package, and we were up to $150 a month for both.

Where does it end? I can't get rid of my children. I am addicted to HBO and Comedy Central. I love my wife and what she does for/to me to keep me happy and stress-free. And I just can't see myself ever going back to a dial-up connection for the Internet.

I am lost. I am hopelessly bogged down in the mire of "faster/easier/more versatile." I am a slave to technology and the "convenience" it brings.

My only solace is that there are no cell phones in heaven…no Internet…no cable television. Just a big, lake with a steady Northwest breeze filling the sails of my boat and pulling me gently, silently toward paradise…

But that will have to wait…one of my kids is calling me on the cell phone…