Changed cellular providers. Again.

Our first ever cell phone experience was with T-mobile.  Cliff got a phone, but I didn't... because if anybody really needs me for something, they can call Cliff and he will relay the message, and if they have Facebook, they can message me there.  I do not enjoy talking on the phone.  

Eventually I decided it would be nice to have a cell phone, if for no other reason than to find Cliff when we are separated inside a huge Walmart store.  So we added a phone to our T-mobile plan.  I don't recall how much it cost.  I was working at the time and we could afford it, so who was counting?

For some reason we became dissatisfied with T-mobile and switched to ATT.  I would check the minutes we used and see that I hardly used my phone at all.  I studied up on some pay-as-you-go cellular companies and decided to use Tracfone.  It seemed perfect for me, and we'd leave Cliff with ATT.

Don't ever use Tracfone.  When I signed up the deal was "however many minutes you buy, we double them".  I should have known it wasn't going to be as great as it sounded.  After all, fireworks are the same way:  Buy one, get five free.  Right.  Sounds better than simply pricing each item separately.  More than once I had to call and tell them my minutes did not get doubled.  They would fix it after I sat on hold for thirty minutes, but what a hassle.  I had to watch them all the time to make sure they got it right.  

By this time Cliff's ATT bill was over $50 for him alone.  All we need to do with our phones is talk and retrieve voice mail.  We don't use them for Internet, we don't text.  I was hating Tracfone more and more, so don't ask me why I got the brilliant idea of getting my husband to use Tracfone too,   which meant he had to pay attention to his usage constantly, lest he run out of minutes.  

I searched the Internet for alternatives and recently discovered Consumer Cellular, which allows 1,000 minutes monthly for $20.  Add another person, it's another $10.  We will NEVER go over 1,000 minutes, but if we happened to get close to that point, they will alert me.  

I love our new phones.  They're flip-phones, simple to use and cheap to buy.  So far I like the customer service they've given.  There's usually a wait time, but I was given the option of hanging up and letting them call me back when my turn came.  

I could clearly understand each of the people I spoke with.

There were a couple of bumps in the road getting switched over, all due to the fact that I had given them one digit wrong in my husband's phone serial number.  It took a lot of effort on the part of Consumer Cellular customer service folks to get everything fixed, but they did it, and they were polite and friendly; I suppose if I had it to do again, I'd have simply gone to a Target or Sears store and bought my phone in person, but it's so difficult to get Cliff to do any shopping.  We still haven't gone looking for a proper rocking chair for his back, even though the one he brought in from the back porch isn't going to last much longer.      

I certainly hope I never feel the need to switch cell phone providers again.

One night in Scott City, Kansas

As we rode east toward home, we decided to find a motel at Scott City, Kansas.  I started looking on the iPad for motels with reviews so we'd get a decent place, and settled on a certain one.  When we arrived in town, I looked on the GPS for the motel that sounded like a bargain for the price, Oak Tree Inn, but it wasn't there.  Maybe too new?  At that point, the only thing we knew to do was drive up and down the streets, but hey... it wasn't that big a town, right?  While both of us looking left and right for this motel, my husband glanced at his rear-view mirror and said, "A cop is pulling me over."

Cliff, already road-weary and not in the best of moods, pulled over with a sigh.  A young, smiling officer walked up; he bent down to address Cliff:  "Did you know you were speeding back there?" he asked.  

"Speeding?  How fast was I going?"

"Well, a few blocks back the speed limit changes to twenty miles per hour for a little way.  You were going thirty-five."  He was still smiling, and I was thinking, we're old people and he will let us off with a warning.

Cliff exploded.  "Twenty miles an hour on a four-lane street?  What we have here is a speed trap."

"What did you say?" the officer, still smiling, responded.  Then, not waiting for Cliff to say anything, he said, "Did you say a speed trap?"

"Yes I did," Cliff said.   "We were looking for a motel, but now I don't think I want to spend a night in this town."

I sunk deep into my seat and kept my mouth shut.

The officer went back, got in his car, and sat there doing who knows what.  I think we both assumed he was writing a ticket.

After at least five minutes he came back and told Cliff, "Well, I'm going to let you off with a warning.  Just watch the speed through town.  You'll find a Best Western motel straight up ahead."

I told him we were looking for the Oak Tree Inn, but he had never heard of it.  

What?  A cop in this town wasn't familiar with it?  At this point, I knew I must have made a mistake.  
The cop let us go, and I kid you not, Cliff never got above twenty miles per hour for the rest of our time in Scott City... even in the thirty-five-miles-per-hour zones, which includes most of the town.  I told him to pull over while I checked my motel information.  That's when I realized the one we were looking for was in Fort Scott, Kansas, not Scott City, Kansas.  We then selected a motel without the help of the Internet, using the method we'd used before the WWW came into existence:  Find a motel that looks cheap, check the price, and ask to see the room before you take it.  We settled in for the night.

My regular readers may remember that when we're traveling and staying in motels, we have a little electric skillet and a decent coffeepot with us.  I had told Cliff that morning that we were having chili hot dogs for supper when we got to a motel.  He isn't a big fan of hot dogs, but he does like chili dogs, so he was really looking forward to the meal.

I dug out the can of chili, but the hot dogs were nowhere to be found.  Obviously, I had left them in the little refrigerator in our last hotel room.  

Cliff pouted.  I assured him that canned Hormel chili was delicious, and we had crackers to go with it.  He didn't answer.  

However, after I heated up the chili in the electric skillet, it only took a couple of bites for him to cheer up somewhat.  I don't even recall what I ate, but I do know Cliff got the whole can of chili and said it really was good, except it would have been better with beans.  Hey, had I known we weren't going to have hot dogs, I would have bought the kind with beans! 

I think I may have had a peanut butter sandwich.   

So there you have it, a rather unpleasant experience in a small town, probably caused by our futile searching for a non-existent motel.  Everybody keeps telling me, "Looks like you were having fun."  Well, I was, to the utmost of my ability, but knowing Cliff had back pain and wasn't particularly enjoying himself kept me down-to-earth (he didn't grumble, but I knew).  

I will leave you with this, garnered from a Google search: