we're total suckers

seb and i had been talking for some time about getting him a new cell phone. his is old and has very very poor reception. he also wanted to try to get a camera phone so he could easily take pictures of disgusting medical phenomenon for documentation. don't ask.

at any rate, getting a new phone became more immediately appealing when seb learned that hawaii is weeks away from passing into law a fine of $250 for driving while talking on the cell phone, unless you are using a hands-free set, and seb's phone was incompatible with all but the most clunky and obnoxious hands free options. so, we investigated.

imagine how excited we were to see a deal advertised in the radio shack flyer that we could get a camera phone for only 50 smackeroonies after all these 'instant' rebates, and then, get another non-camera phone for free, with renewing your contract for 2 years (which we would have done anyway.)

we get to the store. what they didn't tell you in the ad, is that that deal is only for NEW sprint customers. what the crap? *is it just me, or wouldn't you think they'd like to treat their current customers just as nicely as a thank you for staying with them? guess not. anyway, we still get the 'big' part of the rebate, just not the little part, so, instead of the camera phone being $50 it's $80, but we're still thinking, hey, free other phone.

not. that 'free' phone was only 'free' because it also had rebates applied to it. same ones as the other, but it was cheaper to start with, so now it's 'free.' except that we don't get all the rebates, so it's not free, it's $30. still, not bad, just really false advertising. because instead of buy one get one free, it's buy one with a rebate, buy another one with a rebate, but you don't get the rebate.

still, we somehow kept thinking, well, that's ok. my phone isn't that bad but it had been in a few scrapes, and we can still keep it as a back up if any of our new phones get into charlotte's crosshairs. we're already suckers at this point, but hold on, it gets worse.

the rebates aren't actually instant, again, cause we were already sprint customers. see above*. i'm also thinking, if they're gonna give us the money back anyway, just do it now, for pete's sake. still, we're telling ourselves, well, that's still ok.

the real depth of our idiocy didn't come to my attention until we tried to use said camera phone. first off, we have to pay to use it. as if paying for the stupid camera weren't enough. oh, the blessed fine print. you'd really think we'd know better. we don't. so we can use it for 2 WHOLE MONTHS while we try out the service for free that we know we're not gonna pay 20$ a month afterwards to use. so we blew 50 extra dollars on a phone to make it a camera phone, which we can use for 2 months. second. THE PICTURES SUCK. really. i mean, it's not like space invaders graphics or anything, but for the sole purpose seb got it for, it will really be pretty useless. everything looks blue and foggy. in bright light, with the flash. we thought about picture quality when we bought our digital camera. somehow, when getting a camera phone, the idea totally slipped our minds.

seb was hopped up on cold medication (see his post below.) i don't have an excuse. it's done with, it's over, i don't think we can return them, we just have to learn from this, and never ever ever be seduced by the sweet lies of radio shack ever again.