Have you tried to get a truly cheap cellphone option lately? I have, and now, for my sins, I am about to go incommunicado.

First of all, let me just say that  I am not a Luddiite.  I just don’t believe in paying for bells and whistles when all I need is a portable pay phone.

For those of you too young to remember life before cell phones, a “pay phone” was a wonderful convenience  that was available on virtually every second or third street corner.

Phone booths were almost as ubiquitous as public washrooms, and, in some of the seamier parts of town may have actually been easier to find (alas!)

Anyway, I have a computer.  I sit at that computer for far too many hours in a day so I have no interest in consulting a miniature version of it when, finally, I am out and about.  I also have no interest in texting.  If I had wanted to type a note, I’d have sent it from my email while I was sitting at my desk.

When I am away from my desk, I only want a phone in order to reach out for help or be reachable in an emergency.  If I am at a store, I might phone my husband to ask if he’s thought of anything he needs.  That’s just about it.

I have a sturdy flip-phone I bought years ago, that will probably outlive me. I’m not interested in moving “up” to a “smart” phone.  I have a Garmin for navigational help and I prefer to remain the “smart” component in my telecommunications universe while I am on the road.

So I am looking for the cheapest cellphone option I can find, and that is not easy.

First, I visited our local AT&T office and ended my existing line on our business plan.  When my husband and I finally got around to reviewing our wireless service, we discovered to our horror that we were paying a fortune to maintain my dedicated cell phone line.  

( Why we are still with AT&T is a long story that involves my husband’s service while he is in Canada for a couple of days every week.  When AT&T took over Verizon’s Vermont customers some years ago, they grandfathered his special plan that kept the cost of international calls to a minimum.)

Having not resolved my phone issues by myself, I asked my son to see what he could do.  He returned from the AT&T office with the good news that I could bring my flip-phone in, have them install a new sim card and assign me a new phone number, and walk away with 40 minutes of talk-time, good for twelve months, for a one-time payment of $10.  If I used additional minutes over the course of the year, I would have to pay $10. again to re-up my minutes, but I am unlikely to be on my cell phone for even twenty minutes over the course of  a single year.

Sounded good to me, so I hied on down to AT&T on a Saturday afternoon and joined the interminable queue waiting for service.  When I had the opportunity to explain what I wanted, I was told that no such plan exists and that the best I could do was to pay $100. to have my phone enabled for 400 minutes which would be good for a year.  If I didn’t use up my minutes within the year, they could only be added to my next year’s available after I paid another $100. for an additional 400 minutes.   Not a good deal for someone who couldn’t use even 100 minutes in a year of cell phone service, but I was growing weary of the battle and inclined to cave.

That’s when my husband got into the act.  He phoned At&T and the person he spoke with told him there was no such thing as either the $10. a year plan my son had been pitched or the $100. a year deal my local AT&T had offered me.

This consumer melodrama came immediately on the heels of our last misleading encounter with AT&T.  

A couple of months ago, when my husband was first tackling the crazy-high cost of our cell service, he spoke with an AT&T representative who promised that he could reduce our overall charges with some fast-talking plan magic.  At the same time, he told my husband that he could have a brand new tablet added to the service for free.  Never one to refuse a freebie, even though he could see no earthly need to have a tablet, my husband agreed.  When the confirmation email arrived, it included a bill for the first of ten monthly payments for that supposedly “free” tablet.  We immediately contacted AT& T and told them to cancel the whole thing.  They reluctantly agreed and sent a return label for the tablet which hadn’t even arrived yet.

After that, it took us a full billing cycle to get the tablet charges and extra phone number removed from our bill.  We wasted literally days on the phone, being placed on hold, passed from person to person, referred to the wrong department and repeating the whole thing again and again until we were utterly confused and exhausted…all for a “free” tablet that my husband had never even asked for.

Then, of course, began the aforementioned adventure of trying to get a simple emergency cell phone for me.  After searching through other available providers, I am forced to conclude that AT&T may be no worse than the others.  This is progress?

I resent the fact that you can get a cell phone to take your picture, give you directions, play music, browse the internet, do your shopping and wake you from your nap; but you’ll pay through the nose for one that allows you to do nothing more than place phone calls the way we all used to do for a quarter a call at the corner payphone.

Now, get off of my lawn!