So, the human is back to using his very old phone that should probably be displayed in a museum, well it at least acts like it. Unlike those "new" phones that he kept having tribulations with, didn't have any major or even minor problems for quite some time. Of course I wouldn't be telling you this story if nothing happened.

Now before we get to what occurred, let's talk about some other "bad" things that happened from the end of the last part until the main basis of this story. At some point, he had a thing in the back of his work van that shifted unexpectedly and broke one of the back windows. The transmission in this van gave out and had to be completely replaced. After it was done (and payed for), he went to get it by driving his old pickup truck --that badly needs new tires and the battery keeps going flat-- with a human friend of his. He drove the van and his friend drove the truck back to his home. On the way back, his friend in the truck, slammed on the brakes since he almost missed the road he needed to turn on. Nobody ran into anything or skidded off the road, and he did make the turn in time. Unfortunately, the pallet with nine bundles of roofing shingles in the back of the truck did slide forward and proceeded to crush the crossover he had in the back of the truck. Quite nicely I might add. Oh, and near wintertime, the blower motor for the heater in the truck gave up. To this day, it still has not been fixed and has had to use the truck multiple times this winter, but that's another story.

Okay, this phone was working the same as it as been for awhile now, but one day it just up and quit sending or receiving texts, calls, or even data. In the morning it worked fine, then in the afternoon it just suddenly stopped doing any of those things. Strangely the phone seemed normal. It showed the connection and how good of a connection, but nothing. Tried various things like rebooting, and taking the battery out and putting it back after waiting so long, but no luck. Well darn, he had to go to a Provider Z store to see if they could fix it.

Before I continue, I have to tell you that this didn't happen all that long ago but I'm not quite sure on some of the details or the timeline for what occurred at this store. The tale was long and somewhat convoluted when I was told it. My rendition will be much shorter and nonsensical I suspect...

He gets to the store and gets a number or however their system works for service. After some time passes, he is called over and a human male starts to look over the phone to see what the matter is. He's puzzled as well. He continues to puzzle, and while he is doing this, our human starts recounting the things that has happened with the phones he's owned. Then at one point the worker looks at him and asks, "Wait, is this the phone that fell out of your holder and was covered in snow?" He responded yes to the question. "Your wife told me this!" Surprisingly this was apparently the same person that his wife dealt with when he had the last problem with a phone. She was the one who handled it last time. What a coincidence.

Shortly after talking about this some more the worker exclaimed, "Ah ha, I know what the problem is how to fix it! Unfortunately for this problem I can't fix it myself, but my district manger can. If you're willing to wait a half an hour until she gets here, we should be able to fix this." He agrees since he's already been here an hour or so.

The district manager shows up and starts working on it. Though she not having much luck after all. Out of earshot of our human the male goes over to his manger and ask to states something. She looks at our human for a bit then turns back to the worker and shakes her head. A little more time passes then she comes back over and says, "I can get your phone back up and running correctly, but I need to get into your account. Do you know your wife's PIN she uses on the account?" He did not, and they asked him to guess, but no luck. Now the biggest problem was time. She was at work and would not have her phone with her while working and it was going to be a couple of hours until she was off.

So he decide to just wait until she checked her phone on a break or until she finished for the day. While he was waiting he would talk about all the things that were happening at this time of the year and then this phone problem on top of that. Had to deal with a holiday where he cooked all the food for eight people, his anniversary coming up, his wife's birthday, and Christmas where he was going to cook a large meal again... "When is your wife's birthday?", the manager asked. Not thinking too much about it, he told her.

"That's it!" the manger exclaimed. "That's her PIN for the account." And with that revelation, she was was able to get his phone working again. Hurrah!

A few hours later she got off work and called him like she usually does and asked how things ere going with him. He told her it wasn't very good, his phone quit, spent four hours and the Z store before they finally got it working again...

"So you know all about it now, huh? she responded.

"Know what?" he asked confused.

"The new phone I'm getting you for Christmas."

So apparently before going to work that day, she went to the store to get him a new phone as a gift for Christmas, and I'm guessing by basically paying off the balance left for the previously lost phone. She talked with the same worker and told him about her husband's phone problems and wants to surprise him with a new phone. She wasn't specific enough about what she was doing and they switched his number from his old phone over to his new phone right at that moment instead of later. He loses his connection and doesn't know why. Goes to the store and the worker eventually remembers his wife and that she got him a new phone as a gift. The worker asks his manger and she agrees to keep it a secret since telling him will not change anything. End up deactivating the new phone and reactivating the old phone.

Then his wife just blurts it out.

At Christmas he gets a brand new shiny phone. And his oooooollllldddd phone goes back into a drawer to never see the light of day again...

To be concluded...