Technology is changing at breakneck speed and it’s changing the world around us, or at least it is for some people. For the nameless narrator of this flash fiction story, “8 Big Time Bummers About Buying A New Phone,” mobile technology is for suckers and smartphones are dumb anyway. See what happens when he hits a few speed bumps at his local phone store.

In this fourth installment of the Baby Idiots series, our hero will defend the honor of a damsel in destress, even if she’s not a damsel or in distress.

Here is an excerpt:

8. THAT’S HOW THEY GET YOU

You know how phones are stupid anyway? And the only reason you’d even get a new one is if you had to?

Or, I mean, basically the phone you’ve had for about ten years is still kind of working but the charger isn’t, and apparently they don’t make those chargers anymore, so you pretty much have to get a whole new phone.

Well, that’s how they get you.

7. THEY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DESTINY

While you’re waiting your turn in the phone store you’ll probably be feeling pretty ok for the first time that day because you’re looking at the assistant manager who’s the most beautiful maiden of all times.

And she’ll be waiting like destiny to help you, only sometimes, destiny is a big-time jerk and the next thing you know you’ll be standing across from some district manager twerp who has a look on his face like clenched butt cheeks.

6. DISTRICT MANAGERS ARE DICKS ALL OVER

You know when you’ve already done extensive research and you picked out the cheapest phone they have, but the corporate scumbag keeps trying to upsell you?

The thing is, you have to be like, “Hey, Amigo. Do I look like I have beaucoup bucks to spend on a phone? Unless insurance covers wear-and-tear, I literally only have enough for this fifty-dollar one with the forty-nine ninety-nine rebate.”

But he’ll keep telling you about “eight-point-oh something”, and “pixels,” and how the new one’s camera is “something-something.”  He’s probably not even in sales, but he’ll keep looking at the assistant manager as if he is teaching her how to do her own job.

So you look into his face and go, “Please shut up and just sell me the phone I want.”

And he’s all, “I beg your pardon.” The beautiful assistant manager laughs kind of.

And you’ll be like, “Go beg your mom’s pardon, Ding-Dong.”

 

Finish Reading “8 Big Time Bummers” »

 

“8 Big Time Bummers About Buying A New Phone” was originally published by Out of the Gutter, a website publishing flash fiction.

The Baby Idiots series started as a simple story with a simple question in mind. How do you write a story about an irredeemable jerk you just have to love, even when that jerk is bashing someone’s brains in?