I Scored! (I Think...)

Never thought that after nearly 7 months to the day after I got my smart-phone, that I'd picture myself beating it against a desk, as it lay wedged with a letter-opener  jammed into the side of it.

(No, I'm not psychotic... But this is what my experience owning this phone (& all its accoutrements) has slowly driven me to.) Lol.

Just the day before, I'd decided to go ahead and pay my phone in person. (Usually, I pay online or over the phone.)

But this day, I was entitled to a "free accesory" for paying in person! (Ooh! Wonder what I could get?)

(Ok, I'm kidding about the enthusiasm.) 
Technically, I was eligible for the free accessory 3 months ago, but the price of gas had been the discouraging factor.

The store was much like any other Cricket store: It had a variety of patrons fixated on the 'new' & the 'latest', while a few apathetic workers pasted on their obligatory smiles, and muttered hello, as they assessed me from beneath heavily lined eyelids.

The accessory selection was just about what I expected it would be. My choices included a car charger (I already have that), or a protective cell phone cover. So... I opted for the protective cover.

My underwhelmed feeling was not about to grow, as I discovered there was a seriously low selection in this particular store.

After my choices of a neon, cobalt & a sparkly blue frou-frou cover, I opted for the girlie, blue sparkly cover. I mean, I like sparkly things. But this cover looked more befitting of the Toys 'R Us 'princess section' with its fake, made-for-toddlers plastic, cabachon gems, (rather than the dazzling rhinestones I'd always imagined these covers to have up close).
(Ok, well, to their credit, the makers DID try to up the 'sparkle-ante' as best as they cheapily could. After all, there was the unmistakable sparkle of matching-colored glitter which was shimmering from between each little cabachon.
Not exactly what I was expecting. But I thought I'd be decidedly whimsical, and thought, "Meh... hmm... ok. we'll see how I like it."

(Disappointing as it initially was, I have to admit that later, as the phone lay charging at home with its new cover sparkling in the dim light of a lamp while my 13 year old daughter jammed out to the I-Heart Radio, I couldn't deny this new cover had a new, beautiful shimmer of both beauty AND function.
(Now it made me wish I would've gotten a protective cover earlier, before my daughter dropped the phone, leaving a crack in the screen.) 
Whatever. It still worked.
The phone STILL worked in spite of NUMEROUS battles I'd had with it -I've had to reset it twice, causing me to lose all my numbers & texts.

Additionally, the phone used to shut itself off repeatedly (even when the battery was full).

And let's not forget to mention the ending-of-calls, as my cheek would accidentally hit the uneccesarily-huge digits lighting up the screen (like gawdy pink & green Christmas lights) during calls.

For this reason, I'd acquiesced to blacking out the screen to prevent this from happening.
But it's as if the phone were laughing at me!
After a certain amount of time, I couldn't get the screen to light back up again in order to end the calls, so I'd have to disengage the battery just to end the call (or, even more humiliating; ask the recipient to hang up on me in order to end the call).

This was the ZTE Score.

Do I think I "scored"? 

Well, I'm not racing home telling my parents about it.

But after 7 months together, a crack in the screen, and multiple forced closes, I feel like the phone and I have reached a symbiosis... a truce of sorts. It no longer shuts itself off randomly.
No longer does half the annoying / inconvenient things it used to do.

In fact,  it has even seemed to clean up it's act even BETTER since it got dropped! (Lol. I know it's an inanimate object, but I can't help but get a chuckle out of thinking "see? All it took was a swift a$$-kicking, to make it straighten itself out!) ;-)

The cover, however, was beautiful at first, but I should have known it would behave just like many of the high maintenance b*tches who undoubtedly chose it.
Gawdy.
Impractical.
All looks. But don't expect to be able to rely on it.

And... I was about to find out it had a dark side.

No, it didn't take long for this cover to reveal its true, nasty colors yesterday.
I needed to get the cover off to try to disengage the battery. (As an FYI: As part of Cricket's reccommendations, it suggests removing the battery as a routine part of refreshing your phone when it has problems).
Remove?! This cover would not budge!

After stripping off 3 of my fingernails tips, I grabbed a nearby letter-opener. Jammed it into any available orifice, but this b**** wasn't budging!!

After 20 minutes of wrestling, trying to get this cover off, I'd reached my wits end.
This meant war!

In the back of my mind, however, I  realized (in the sad, Murphy's law way), that my phone may meet it's end that night, the very night I'd just paid the bill. And I knew I might not be able to replace it.
But this cover was an obstinant adversary that MUST be overcome. 

By now, I was done, having muttered every expletive under the sun. 

I went to the kitchen, & grabbed a steak-knife.

Jamming the steak knife into the side of the cover, I twisted and pulled, feeling the cheap plastic cover beginning to bend. I could not believe it was on THIS friggin tightly!!

With my free hand, I shoved the letter-opener into another opening.

Nothing!

Out of sheer frustration, I used the letter-opener as a handle, with the phone cover still attached to the end of it, I suddenly found myself banging the damned phone against the desk. (All that managed to do was shut off the phone.) But almost as if the phone was curious as to the outcome, it turned itself back on like some beaten zombie, resurrected itself back up from the grave.

Suddenly, oddly, I felt almost a camaraderie with my phone... my buddy...
It's short life flashed before my eyes. I recalled the thousands of hours of enjoyment I'd gotten from it: --all the Ghost Adventures episodes I'd been able to watch, all the music I'd listened to... all the books I'd enjoyed from its Kindle app. All the hours it kept me company... Sane, while working by myself, constantly alone. I was sadly aware it's little life may be ending tonight, but then again, I reasoned it's future was questionable if it remained trapped within this cover...

I gritted my teeth...

One last thrust of the knife into the side-section, I gave one vigorous twist, and with a loud pop, it flew apart --its two pieces coming to land on the top of the desk.

I'll be damned. The friggin' thing was still intact!

After such a battle, I now felt a new sympathy for my ZTE Score.

My poor phone.
My first smart phone.
It was, indeed a trooper.

I assessed its poor, battered body for damage. And was honestly surprised that it only attained several small scratches to its side. (Well, I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, it only received a single crack from a fall onto a hard floor, and here it was, having been bound by the sparkly grips of death, in the jaws of that evil cover, sustained several cuts from a knife, and STILL functioning!! Whoo-hoo! ( In fact, I'm writing this very blog from it now. And I must say, I'm almost proud of it. :)

The cover, however, didn't fare as well. Several knife-induced saw marks to the inside, and she already lost 2 jewels in the battle. Like a fallen villain, she lay like the traitor she was-- almost having been responsible for having forced damage caused to the very device she was created to protect.

So, to answer the question: Do I think I scored by choosing the ZTE Score as a smart phone? Well, I'd like to believe I have.

But, after witnessing & experiencing what I've been thru with this phone, I can say, it's definitely earned its name of "Score".

Not for me.

But for itself. :)