When it rains, it pours...

There's an old saying: "When it rains, it pours." This usually is uttered when one thing goes wrong and is then followed by other calamities.

Yesterday afternoon, a thunderstorm passed through the area where I live and I discovered soon after that my cell phone was no longer working properly. I assumed that the storm had affected the nearest cell tower and my signal was compromised. I didn't give it much more thought, figuring that the workers would have the tower rebooted and in-service again soon. The remainder of that day, I was not able to make any phone calls or text anyone, but at least my data-signal was working periodically, although it was OFF more than it was ON. I was able to check emails, Discord, and the Hive blockchain in little bursts of anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes before it winked-off again for a bit.

The next day, I had no data signal whatsoever, as well as no voice or text connectivity. After 24 hours had passed, I figured something was amiss besides a non-functional cellphone tower. So, I dressed and drove the fifteen-or-so miles to my nearest cellphone store. They reported that there were no tower outages in my area. I also noticed that I still did not have any connectivity at their location, which would have been provided by a different tower than where I live. So, Tonya and Brad began to work on the problem.

They rebooted the phone, which should have made it re-sync to a local tower, but no good. They checked the network settings in the phone and everything looked fine. They forced a 'network reset' but the problem still persisted. They changed some other settings, but still no connectivity. They replaced the SIM card thinking that would surely fix the problem, but it did not. And here is where it begins to get a quite strange...

I love my current phone so much 💖 that I bought another identical phone on eBay a few years ago as a 'backup' in case my primary phone ever died. (Doing that has come in handy a time or two, as I could just switch the SIM card to the other phone and I am instantly in-business again until I can get the primary phone fixed!) This time, however, swapping the SIM card to the backup phone did not fix the problem, as the backup phone exhibited the same connectivity issue. Next, the tech did a 'factory reset' on my backup phone, and we all stood around in anticipation to see it working again. But, we were disappointed again. At that point, we had exhausted all options that any of us could conjure from our brains.

Tonya immediately began preparing an 'exchange order' in their system, as I had purchased "insurance" on the phone for a couple of extra dollars-per-month onto my cellphone plan. This entitled me to a free replacement of an equal-or-better phone should anything happen.

During this process, she realized what must have happened to my phones. Periodically, she said, some cellphone manufacturers 'retire' old models of phones when they begin to fail to keep up with ever-growing network requirements. She said Apple has been doing this for years with their iPhone products, and perhaps my manufacturer is now doing it, too. That was the only explanation that made sense, as my phone was originally purchased five years ago, although it was still working perfectly with the networks until now. 😒

My beloved phone is a Samsung Galaxy NOTE 4, and has some features that newer NOTE phones don't have, which is why I really wanted to stay with the NOTE 4. That model is no longer available in the replacement-plan, so I will be getting a NOTE 8. The disappointing thing about that model is that it is one of the "sealed" phones, which means that I will never be able to add a Micro-SD card to expand the memory or replace my own battery when it eventually goes bad. That totally sucks, but she said all cellphones are moving to that direction, sadly. So, the 64 GB Micro-SD card packed with music will not work with the new phone and I will be relegated to whatever smaller amount of storage is built into the phone.

Tonya thought she had placed the order early-enough in the day that the new phone might be delivered tomorrow. If not, I will have to go all weekend without a phone — no phone calls, no texts, no Internet — and pick it up on Monday. As a woman in my sixties who lives alone, it freaks me out a bit when I am cut-off from the rest of the world like this, unable to call someone if I need to do so. Also, I am such an Internet junkie — I use online dictionaries and encyclopedias every single day, as well as check the weather, email, Discord, Hive blockchain, and a bunch of other things.

And here is where the "When it rains, it pours" comes into play... on the way home, the "Check Engine" light came on in my late-Mom's & Dad's car, which I was driving because the "Check Engine" light lit in my car a few days ago and I haven't gotten it to the mechanic yet. 🙁 So, I will actually have to drive to the mechanic's shop in one of the cars instead of calling for an appointment. And I have to drive fifteen miles, one way, to get the new phone when it comes in, then fifteen miles back home. With no phone, they can't call or text or email me when the new phone arrives, so I might very well drive over there only to discover it did not arrive and have to go back Monday. And I realized until the phone is fixed, I won't be able to arrange to get the Bluetooth circuit in my laptop fixed. And I won't be able to call and check on friends & family. But, as my late-husband always said: "It is what it is."

UPDATE:

The above was written last night when I had no Internet and couldn't post it. I drove the 15 miles to the phone store today and thankfully, my new phone had arrived! I say "new" (as it is new to me), but it is a factory-refurbished phone, which is fine! Now to start the learning-curve in how to use it and get everything setup the way I want it. I stopped off at a coffee shop on the way home so I could get something to eat and post this. See you on the flip side!