Life was as usual until I tried to send a text. Typing the word "weekend" became a battle of will, as my "e"s quickly ate each other and the preceding letters. "D" was, of course, impossible, so I ended up with "wkn." I'm mostly a fan of the T9 texting system, but it was FAILING me today. After spending maybe, oh, 8 minutest or so struggling to produce "wkn," I finally realized that I also couldn't use the "space" button and that pressing "next" (which usually changes either the word or the punctuation) was actually sending me to a menu to change my phone's settings. An agonizingly laborious 20 minutes later, I sent off a text that read, "This wkn isn't going to work, but how about coff somtim? My phon is jack up..can't push th thr button...grr."
Thinking that my little Samsung just needed a coma, I did all the standard, I-don't-know-how-to-work-technology failsafes, like turning it off and on, taking the battery out, blowing on it, but to no avail. I started mentally running through all my options...I didn't want to buy a NEW phone to use for three months, my old phone isn't compatible with Bluetooth (which you Californians know is necessary in a mere four days for driving), I can't get a pre-paid phone and switch numbers, etc. I signed onto my Sprint account as a last act of desperation, to which I was greeted with the following message: "Restrictions have been placed on your account due to an unpaid balance."
Now, I really like Sprint about as often as I like T9. Without exaggeration I tell you that I have logged onto my Sprint account to pay my bill three times in the last month, but have never been able to because either the system is "performing routine maintenance" or I'm temporarily logged out or whatever. Without thinking much about it, I paid off the balance, left my phone in "coma" mode, and went off to tutoring. A few hours later, and to my deep and abiding joy, I turn my phone on to discover that life has indeed righted itself, that my three has resumed its regular activities, as have my T9, "space" and "next" functions.
And then it dawns on me.
"Restrictions"?!?! They took my three!!! Who does that?!
