How I did it: First step was to lose my old cell phone.  Turns out I have mad cell phone losing skills, so that was no problem.

Next step...I went to T-Mobile's web site & picked out a useful, less-overpriced model, ordered it, and had it shipped to me.

Then I discovered that I needed to take the tiny magic card from the old phone & put it into the new phone in order to make the new phone be a phone.  Oops.  Hadn't thought of that.

Next step was a trip to the TMobile store.  The fellow in the store was very pleasant and sold me a new magical microchip card.

Then I found out that the phone service is in Mr. Wren's name, so I could not complete the secret transaction needed to activate the microchip's magic.  So the next  step was to wait for Mr. Wren to come home from work, sleep, and wake up.

Next day, Mr. Wren phoned the TMobile people and vouched that I could ask for things on my phone.  I'm sure I could have saved time by having any male pretend to be Mr. Wren or faking a man voice myself, but I'm only devious enough to think about that sort of trickiness.

One more thing....it turns out you need to know the code number that is written in teensy numbers on the tiny magical microchip so that the phone people can make everything happen.  Of course, the microchip was already in the phone, so the very nice phone person had to phone me back on my land line while I took my new cell phone apart, forced the magical microchip out, and retrieved the number.

And finally, it was done.  The old phone was deactivated, and the new phone was turned into a working phone.  All of the T-Mobile people were exceptionally pleasant, perkily so, really, while I bumbled about.

Lessons & tips: Don't lose your cell phone!

If you do lose your cell phone, you might as well find the humor in it.

Resources: Nice T-Mobile employees, nice husband!

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Sep 21, 2008, 05:51PM PDT | 16 comments | 74 cheers