New Towers and Five-Cent Angels

They just built a new cell phone tower less than a mile from my house. Now my neighborhood, which had previously been a location for notoriously bad cell phone coverage, is almost entirely "full bars". Gone are the days of telling people "I'm about to lose you" as I drive towards home. Gone too are the days of always telling my brother and sister to call back on the house line - they are in their 20s, and it never seems to occur to them to call any number besides a mobile. Now - full bars in my living room, and even the basement.

This has made me unreasonably happy.

A couple of days ago I drove around my neighborhood, to all of the various places where coverage was impossible, calling Mrs. Spacetropic. Call me back, at the community center. Or call me at my favorite local fake Irish bar - or send me email on my Crackberry. It's a telecommunications miracle just in time for Christmas! I suppose this is the point to insert some maudlin reflection on the fact that we have no silent, disconnected places in modern life - no refuge from the tumultuous information-sphere. But right now I'm not feeling it - bring on the full bars. My cell provider (T-Mobile) has earned their holiday Whitman Sampler.

On a related note, we are trying to teach the 12-year-old responsibility, and she has been given the provisional use of an old, unattractive mobile phone. Almost as soon as this strictly limited privilege was assigned, she began receiving inane text messages from her peers, the latest of which was an "Angel Tag" - some sort of girlish conceit of blessing and luck that would be bestowed upon the recipient - but only if they forwarded it to nine more recipients.

"Do not respond to these." I counseled my daughter, but I also wondered if T-Mobile hadn't contracted with some guerrilla marketers to target families with youngsters who are coming of age in terms of mobile communication, but who have not yet succumbed to the "unlimited text messaging" up-charge that becomes inevitable when the 5-cents/per plan becomes unsustainable.

Angel tag, pass it along.