My Crackberry

Want to hear something really smart that I just did?

Yeah, me too. Too bad I can't come up with anything.

I am a Metro PCS customer. Overall, it's a great, cheap service and I enjoy using it. They don't drop calls nearly as much as they used to, and if you call customer service and pretend that you want to buy something, you can actually speak to a live person and not an overly cheerful pre-recorded message which answers precisely none of your questions.

So, Metro PCS is about as helpful as your average cellphone provider.

However, they recently added Blackberrys to their line of phones. The way Metro PCS works, you have to buy the phone outright because their service is so cheap, this is the only way they make significant profit. And the new Metro PCS Blackberrys were exhorbitantly expensive about a month ago: $550. I see the price has now dropped to $400.

So, I figured I'd beat the system. I'd go on Craig's List, find one of these that is being sold cheaply, and have it "flashed" to Metro PCS. So, I bought a Blackberry Curve from a local college student for $200, and took it to the nearest Metro PCS store.

But Metro PCS was already ahead of me, here. They had figured that their customers might pull something like this, and it would greatly ding their profit margin. So, they outright refuse to "flash" such a phone over to their service.

Well, they don't exactly outright refuse. Instead, they tell you that they can do it, but you won't have any of the original features from the Blackberry and they can't provide them. In other words, your Blackberry suddenly becomes a generation zero cell phone and you might as well be walking around with a phone that looks like this:

So since the official Metro PCS store won't do it properly, one of the clerks slipped me a card for a guy who will do it. Apparently this is a very shady transaction, as they can lose their license to do business with Metro PCS if they go ahead and do it the right way, instead of the wrong way that Metro PCS wants.

Since then, I've been to a couple of these shady cell phone operators. The first two shook their heads after a while and pronounced it next-to-impossible to do. Each successive company looks a little shadier.

The most recent one had a group of gang members sitting around in the lobby, joking about Michael Jackson.

"Fudge packer," one pronounced, which brought a fit of giggles out in each of them.

"Fudge packer," another one agreed, shaking his head. More giggles ensued.

By the end of it, I'd head the word "Fudge packer" at least 20 times, and these simple souls were nearly on the floor due to the hilarity of it all.

I said nothing, as I had no idea if any of them was "packing" a weapon.

So, this particular shady operation has had my crackberry for three days now. I am still waiting to see if they're able to get it switched over to Metro PCS. If that doesn't work, I'm quite terrified as to where I'll be referred to next.

Of course this could all have been averted if Metro PCS was willing to make the whole transition a little easier. So, if I'm killed by the Fudge Packer Gang, I blame Metro PCS.

I'll try to text out my last words.