Once again I have the cheapest phone on earth

First, here's a shout-out to the utterly incompetent traffic aide standing a few feet away from me during my long wait at the intersection yesterday, while I got out of the turn lane and waited to go straight, unaware I'd be heading onto an expressway no matter which direction I took. (I thought the cabs honking at me were just being jerks.) By failing to say anything, you made my life more exciting, and helped me overcome adversity--in this case, possibly getting run over by any of the 1000s of cars swarming around Soldier Field for a massive sports event I hadn't even known about until I was biking downtown. (It wasn't a Bears game.)

In other news, I have a functioning cell phone again. Circuit City doesn't sell T-Mobile pay-as-you-gos at all. Best Buy has them on display but hasn't stocked them for weeks. (Enraging.) Target sells them at a higher price, but it'd been 5 days, I wasn't going to run around anymore. A woman at Target got one just before me and at the register, her young daughter was oddly thrilled that I was buying the same phone. (Like when a little kid meets someone with their same first name, I guess.)

After a fruitless attempt to get to a LadyFest-fundraiser sale (The Reader had the wrong hours) I got to the T-Mobile store at Lawrence & Damen at 6:10. The sign said they closed at 6, but one employee was in there helping out one customer. I went inside and waited. Until 7:00. She was getting a real phone and real contract, which takes an eternity, which is another reason I like my cheapskate phone. I wasn't annoyed at them, just tired, and sad as I watched the last real hour of sunlight ebb away. But hey, I got to listen to "lite" music, including "Dancing Queen," and bizarrely, "Wild Thing." It took literally two minutes to get my new phone set up. I went into the twilight, walking to Andersonville, dialing almost everyone I knew to get their numbers in the phone, reaching only one person. (Later I got my first call and my first missed call.)