Our 11-year-old son got his first mobile phone last week.
I was completely unprepared for his reaction: a state of giddiness bordering on euphoria. I'm not sure if he'd have been any happier had he found a Folgers can full of silver dollars buried in the backyard.
Evidently, "Child's First Phone Day" is now a thing, one step above a birthday and just a notch below Christmas.
Mark KennedyBefore we went out phone shopping together last Sunday, I tried to temper his expectations.
"This is just a fact-finding trip, Son" I said. "If we do - by some miracle - get a phone today it will be the cheapest, dumbest phone we can find."
Realizing he had no real leverage at that point, our 11-year-old nodded dutifully and promised not to be disappointed if we went home empty-handed.
"I promise, Daddy."
Right, I thought.
He had been lobbying for a phone for months. His mother and I had fought the good fight, but our resolve was wearing thin.
While my son and I waited for help at the phone store, it became immediately obvious that AT&T had planned ahead for people like us.
There was indeed one dumb phone available. On a display case, off to one side, was a single flip phone that looked like it had been teleported from 2005. It might have handled a telephone call OK, but to text required matching letters of the alphabet to the corresponding numbers on the keypad. My son looked it over - while never actually touching it - and he was unable to conceal a frown. This was a phone style that was popular, literally, before he was born - a museum piece.
Yes, it was technically a mobile phone, but texting on it would be akin to tapping out Morse Code. Not ideal.
Eventually our salesman came over, shook hands with both of us and began to nod earnestly as I told him our dilemma.
"Look, we just need an inexpensive phone," I said. "He is about to start middle school, and he needs to be able to send and receive texts. That's all."
There was more earnest nodding, followed by: "Let me see what I can do."
For the next 10 minutes, our salesman scribbled numbers on a little Post-it note, all the while punching data into his iPad. At points, he would look away from the screen and fix his gaze on a far wall, as if to search his mind for a perfect solution to our phone problem.
Eventually, he pushed the Post-it note across the table to me. It was a drum-roll moment. I felt like I was buying a new car.
For $15 a month, he said, we could add a line to our 10-gig data plan and we could purchase the flip phone for about $69 plus tax.
Alternately, he said, he could upgrade the whole family to an unlimited data plan for $12 a month and AT&T would throw in a new iPhone for free.
My son's jaw fell open and his mouth froze in the shape of an "O."
"Excuse me?," I said. "We can add a flip phone for $15 a month or get unlimited data and a free iPhone for just $12."
"Yep," he said.
My son's eyes go so big that I felt the urge to push them back into his head.
"OK," I said, deadpanning. "Let me go outside call my wife.
"You stay here," I said to my son, who now had a permanent look of astonishment plastered on his face.
Privately, I knew the battle was lost. Our 11-year-old is a smart cookie, and he would never let us forget spending more money for a vastly inferior phone and data plan.
His mother agreed to the "upgrade," and before you know it, I was digging out a credit card to pay the tax on his new "free" iPhone, which would be delivered to our house a couple of days later. We also bought an OtterBox case, which he caressed like a new puppy all the way home.
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When we got home, he jumped on a laptop and began tracking his phone order like NORAD tracking a cruise missile.
Two days later, the iPhone arrived via UPS, and our 16-year-old son recorded the unpacking on video.
Our younger son opened the box and immediately began to hop up and down. He grabbed the packing paper and popped it in celebration. Then he began a high-pitched pant that sounded like a starving monkey who has just been presented with a ripe banana.
At that moment, it dawned on me that the "free" iPhone in his hands came with an implied lifetime contract.
There's no going back.
A mobile phone may be wireless, but it binds you like an umbilical cord.
"Unlimited data" sounds a lot like infinity and, by extension, eternity.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.