Bye Bye, Teardrop (An Ode, Of Sorts, To My Dying Phone)

This beloved Nokia 7600 of mine is nearing its last days.

It has not been well and is beyond saving. It is making me sad because it is my favourite mobile phone ever. And I've had many before (always Nokias except for my first phone which was a Motorola), thanks to my hefty monthly bills (my previous line of work required a phone permanently stuck to my ears) and the annual S$500 vouchers that Singtel so generously give out to subscribers of their biggest phone plan when I was living in Singapore. I changed top-of-the-line phones like other girls would swap designer bags. Yes, materialism runs rampant on that tiny island but my line of justification was "but the phone is my rice bowl, my office, my life, my everything!".

Then I moved to Sydney. New pared-down life, a totally different occupation that didn't require a phone, mobile or landline, all that much, not many new friends to text or call and when the Nokia I brought with me died two years after (I've never had a phone do that to me - I retire them, they don't conk out on me!), I bought the 7600 - the first time that I've bought one that wasn't a "latest release". It was launched two years earlier but I've always wanted one because it was pretty-ugly and different and most new phones coming out then were just plain bad-ugly.

Nokia had big plans for it. It was supposed to be the prototype of all new phones to come but the public's reception of it was degrees below lukewarm and I think the Finnish telecommunication giant stopped production after the initial run and also had to shelf all future mobile shape-defining plans. It wasn't easy hunting a brand-new-in-box set down but I finally found one online.

It was love at first touch when it finally arrived. And the things we do and have to put up with for love!

The most difficult was re-learning how to text - before, I was Ms Quikdraw McGraw when it came to texting but with its vertical keypads I was reduced to a little spazzy. Many times I wanted to it throw it hard against the wall but love won out. I never got my texting speed back but over time, I felt less of a cackhanded retard.

And forget about using pretty little clutches or bags when going out! It wasn't going to fit in them even when I reduced my bare essentials.

Then there was the taunting by friends. Not one to crumble under peer pressure, I held on to my little teardrop-shaped darling. Those naysayers did one day realised that it really was true love and have learnt to acccept and even appreciate its quirks.

It has been a good little phone to me for the three years that I've had it. Wow! That makes it my longest-serving phone. It's never thrown any tantrums and I've never had to send it to the 'shop. I couldn't have asked for more. If Nokia still makes them, I wouldn't think twice about buying another. The reconditioned secondhand ones on Ebay don't count.

It's now on its last bar of battery.

And its replacement bought and brought home.


















The boyfriend thinks I should just turn it off but I'm going to let it slowly fade away.

Bye bye, Teardrop. I now have to un-learn texting your special way but I won't forget you. My right thumb won't let me, not for a while anyway, judging from the way it's been hitting the "7" button on the new phone thinking it's the "3" on you. You will be sorely missed.