i'm deliberating on how to start this post, i have been for days, but i've come no closer to an answer. it relates to a phone. my hand phone specifically. it's as rare as a dinosaur bone nowadays. not that it's ancient or belongs to the flintstones era, but it's highly unlikely that you'll see it on anybody's hand, bag or within a 500km radius of any sane people. it probably belongs in the museum, right next to the display of rattling bones.

what's so unusual about it, you may ask? well, even if you didn't, i'm still telling you. it's state-of-the-art, top rate technology cheap simple. yes, the most basic model that the brand carries. couple of hundred dollars at most. it even looks cheap simple. chauffeurs and maids won't even be caught dead with such a phone. which is such an irony to me. at this stage in my life, where i can get any phone in the market without feeling the pinch, and i am resigned to using one that i bought for my little boy a few years ago. heck, even he is using a cool looking red ferrari-shaped one now which goes vroom, vroom when it rings.

so, why haven't i switch over to the latest smartphone with all the gadgety stuffs and really hi-tech applications? this is the precise reason why i am writing this post. not for laying down the reasons, but for the looks and smirks that i have been getting by far. and the number of times that i have to re-tell my stories in order to justify why i am still using something that most people condone as inferior. it's pretty tiring, trying to beat down that little part of me that still cares about public opinions. once in a while, when the resistance is low, i actually get bothered about what people think and i don't want them to have the impression that i am el-cheapo who can't afford to buy a proper phone or her distant cousin, el-dumbo who is a technology-idiot. i actually delve into the long, and more than slightly boring story of how my handphone came about. gasp!! traitor!

most of the time though, i intentionally fish out my phone and place it in a highly visible spot for all to see, and to have them recoil in shock and disgust. and i use it in glee when others are fishing out their gold coloured blackberry-lookalikes and swiping their fingers on smartphones until they develop iphonfingernitis. i admit, one of the many reasons that i am still using my phone and and love it, is to indulge the defiant and rebellious side in me. i love it when all the usual thoughts and impressions leap into other people's mind, but they don't dare to voice it out for fear of sounding rude. they so badly want to know what the heck is wrong with me, but they are not able to satisfy their curiosity. the higher level they are in the hierarchy, the more warped their thinking. i can see it in their eyes, directors, bankers, managers, ceos. i feel a little like a devil. only if discrimination is in their hearts.

every once in a while, mobile phone operators will tempt me with their big colourful ads of smart phones and 'unlimited usage' in the newspaper. every once in a while, i look and wonder. however, when the minute is up, i still prefer my phone, and all it's antiquity. me and my phone. :-)

so, why do i prefer this phone anyway? i don't think that is the point of the story. besides, i don't fancy going through my whole long list of reasons just to satisfy anybody's curiosity yet another time.