Four or five people at work have bought new cell phones within the last month or so. They all pull them out in meetings and compare the software they’ve downloaded, their web access, and how much email they can store on it. (Not that I think there’s any compensating going on here for insecurities in other areas, but I should mention that they’re all male.) I was thinking about getting a new phone because I’ve never liked the one I have. It’s a little Motorola flip phone that is very slippery (good for sliding boards, not good for phones), which has caused me to drop it numerous times. I’ve also been contemplating a new PDA – the iPaq I got a year ago is completely worthless and I’ve threatened to take it into the parking lot and run over it on many occasions. Rebecca’s phone died this week and she was coveting a new one as well. So we made the trek to the Sprint Store and each got a shiny new phone – a Treo phone/Palm combination for me and a little Samsung flip phone for Rebecca. My phone number won't transfer for a few days, and I'll have to copy over all the phone numbers on the old phone, but now I can whip mine out in meetings too.

A friend at work went to a periodontist today to find out what can be done about her receding gums. She was told the same thing that I was told about mine - they excise a hunk of skin from the roof of your mouth (the doctor may not actually have used the work "hunk", but it was implied) and graft it onto the offending gum, thereby giving you not one, but two, wounds in your mouth to heal. The guy I saw told me I would be in "misery" (his exact word) for 4 days and that I shouldn't plan to do any work, eat any solid food or make any important investment decisions. Needless to say, I have continued to postpone this joyous activity until they start using Gortex grafts and providing an IV drip of morphine for the week after the surgery.