Cell Phone Drama

I think I mentioned the fact that my cell phone got washed and quit working. While the battery is fine, I can't hear anything. The good thing was M was able to transfer my 418 minutes to his phone. Now, to the drama part. I mentioned to my mom that the phone is no more. I really shouldn't have, knowing my mom, but I couldn't resist. See, when the phone was in the washing machine and the water started pouring, it made a desperate phone call (on it's own initiative) to my husband's number. Even phones in our home know who is likely to step in and save the day.
My mom didn't find the story amusing at all. I think she forgot that they raised two children just fine without a cell phone.
So, anyway, they have a collection of good phones at home (both dad and brother LOVE high tech toys so they buy a new phone pretty much every year or sooner if they find one they really want :) He insisted on sending me one (or two :) of their old phones. I was trying really hard to explain that they will not work here and why. I also pointed out that we use tracfone for a phone, not one of the big cell phone companies.
Fast forward to Thursday. My brother calls me around 2pm (which is past midnight in Ukraine!) asking me if we were going to be home on Friday, because he just sent me a birthday present. I knew right there and than it was a phone and was fearing the worst. I was afraid he bought one of those really expensive cell phones that require a very expensive contract. And I wouldn't have the heart to tell him 'Gee, thanks, you went out of your way to buy a very expensive phone in the US (I still have no idea how he did it from Ukraine, but out of the two of us he's always had the brains and I have...something, I am sure:) And you overnighted it so that it got here on my birthday, but we are not going to use it, because it requires a contract'.
Well, the phone came, and it was a tracfone (obviously he has more brains than I give him credit for :)! The nicest they've got, too. I was really exited! Well, M went to activate it and it wouldn't. See, my brother bought it on e-bay from a guy in Arizona, not knowing that it wouldn't work in SD. M spent 2.5 hours on the phone last night trying to figure out what to do with it. He got tracfone to promise to send us another phone (the kind we wanted, too) with a prepaid envelope to send this one back to them.
When he was finally done, we went to the store to look at the phone 'in person' just to find out it is on sale for 15$, and that includes a car charger and a hands free ear piece! We bought it. It was just too good of a deal and we can always use the car charger, if nothing else. Plus, M's phone is about to die. So we will be using the phone the company sends us to replace M's when it dies and I got a brand new phone for 15$. With a card that doubles our minutes! (the card alone is 50$ if you buy it at the store) We are not sure why it doubles our minutes, we think it's because my old number was transferred to it and it had the card on it (another hour on the phone this morning).
Life is never dull here :)