Rich and Strange Aeons

In 2005 I got my first cell phone, inspired by moving (thus needing a new phone arrangement) and my father's illness (meaning more time in Chicago, competing with my mother's dial-up, and being a different # for friends right when I'd be stressed out.) I was commitment-phobic, so I got a $50 Cingular GoPhone (pay as you go) from Target. A Nokia 6010. By 1995 standards probably rather advanced -- web access! games! apps! -- but even by 2005, rather clunky and brick-like. Still, it served. Battery life without much use was like a week or two, and last summer my other niece attested that hers was indestructible, until she deliberately smashed it into a puddle.

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