Am I doing something wrong here?

Seriously, am I?  I mean, I think I'm pretty gentle when it comes to handling my cell phone.  I don't throw it around, I don't drop it all the time (okay, well it has, on one or two occasions, slipped out of my hand, but it always lands on soft surfaces!), but I just cannot get a cell phone that will cooperate with me for the entire time until I am eligible for a new one.

Take, for instance, my last couple of phones.  I was eligible for a new phone in December 2009.  Great!  I can't afford fancy phones like the iPhone, Android, or Blackberry (would love to someday, just not there yet), so I picked out the LG Chocolate Touch.  It seemed like a decent phone for my purposes (phone calls and text messaging).  This phone lasted just over a year and then text messages stopped coming through, phone calls didn't show up until several hours later, and voicemails came hours after they were left.  As a substitute teacher, I rely on receiving these phone calls to be able to get a job each day.  So, my mom offered to lend me her phone until I am eligible for my next new phone (August 2011, buy the way!).  She had the same exact phone as me, but hated the touch screen, so she was happy to go back her her old pink Razr phone.

Twin phones.
Purple cover - my phone
Teal cover - mom's phone

This worked out well for me, and mom got her old favorite ringtone back.  Perfect!  Until a couple of weeks ago...My phone seemed really quiet for a couple of days, but I didn't think much of it.  Until all my texts for 2 days came to my phone all at once!  Talk about some missed messages, I had a few!  I tried to text a friend to let her know that I didn't mean to ignore her, my phone just decided to "store" all my message for a couple of days before letting me see them all.  That's when I realized I couldn't send messages either.  ANNOYING!  Oh, and did I mention that I also missed a handful of calls too because my phone decided not to let me know I had an incoming call.  Great!  Phone 2, down.

Enter Phone 3

Far right is my latest phone.

You see, in our family, my dad goes through a LOT of phones.  He's hard on them.  It happens in his line of work.  They get wet, they get dropped, they get buried in trenches...they get broken.  So we always hold on to our old phones when we get a new one so that when Dad inevitably kills another phone, he's got a few backups to choose from. ☺  This is where I picked phone 3 from.  My brother's old Samsung Alias.  The front screen is cracked and nonworking but the phone itself works fine.  I had to order a new battery and charger for it, but this is still much cheaper than buying a whole new phone. 

I'm on day one with phone 3, and so far, I'm getting used to it.  

The keys are tiny, though!
I don't know how Jon's big "man fingers" managed to hit the right buttons
when I can't get them unless I use the tips of my nails!

In the meantime, I'll be counting down the days until August when I can go out and get a new phone!