Yesterday I was told not to come back to the office without a cell-phone. Well, not in so many words. Let's just say it was strongly implied that today should really be the day I finally took the plunge into Lake Wireless. I am the only agent with no business cards. We have just moved buildings into the home office downtown. Therefore the home office is, in partial compensation, printing up lovely new business cards for everyone with our new address on. If I could get a cell phone, I would get my very own business cards for free. And I am all about the business cards. There's something so urbane about brandishing business cards.

Slight problem: I've been resisting cell phones for years. My mother once gave me a cell phone. I never charged it, never used it, never figured out how to put minutes on it, never even bothered to memorise the number. It's not so much that I find cell phones bothersome or expensive or complicated as that I believe they are actively evil. I hate the way people become attached to them. I hate their annoying little beeps and burbles and the cutesy way people use their ringtones to say something about their personality. I hate people who sit around discussing their service plans in the same way some groups of new mothers discuss their babies' bowel movements. I hate seeing people chat on them in public places--especially when they have that little thingermabob screwed in their ear so that I can't tell if they're talking on a cell phone or if they're some random homeless crazy person--and double the hate when the subject is some personal matter best resolved behind closed doors, as opposed to the goddamn check-out line in the market. I hate seeing people drive while talking on them. I hate the way that cell phones purchased for the noble cause of "emergencies only" gradually turn everything into an emergency. I hate the way people can almost live out of them, organising everything into one of these tiny little packages.

Yes, I know they've saved lives in the past, but in my opinion those people are simply defying their inevitable Darwinian fate. There have been times when newly met persons have literally gone down several notches in my esteem upon my learning they own cell phones. I imagine it's something like being a devout religous woman and learning that the perfectly nice gentleman you just met is, sadly, an infidel: it's a shame that a person who is otherwise so decent will be going to Hell.

I went to the Cingular outlet with a rather grim, determined look on my face. "I want a cell phone," I said.

"What were you looking for in a cell phone?" asked the clean-cut young man named Chris. Strangely, all the persons I spoke with regarding my cell-phone ownership were clean-cut young men named Chris.

What am I looking for in a cell phone? This is precisely the question that threw me when we were trying to buy a car. We have been so broke for so long that things other people consider standard--such as interior lighting--we regard as luxurious. However, I was only interested in bare bones. My ideal cell phone, I think, would be a World War II-era field phone.

"I want it to ring when someone calls me," I said. "I want it to dial out when I put in someone's number. When I turn it off I don't want anyone to be able to contact me unless they show up at my doorstep. I want to be able to sling it into the back of a drawer in March and leave it there and, if the spirit moves me in August to make a call from it, I want to be able to do that."

Chris laughed. "Oh, I think we can find you something a little better than that."

"No," I said. "That is what I want." He was the one who asked me what I was looking for in a cell phone and now he's backing off when I tell him that what I want in a cell phone is total submission?

"This one has MP3 capacities--"

"No."

"Streaming media--"

"No."

"GPS?"

"I leave the house just so that people can't find me."

"But if you enter in a location, the voice commands will give you turn by turn instructions."

"No."

"Who is your current service provider?"

"This is my first cell phone. I've never had one before."

It was as if E.F. Hutton had spoken: all the other salespersons fell silent and stared at me. The back of my neck prickled. I felt like shouting at them "NO, I HAVE NOT YET JOINED YOUR SCIENTOLOGIST-LIKE CULT OF PHONE-WORSHIP. DEAL."

Eventually, I found the cell-phone answer to Mr. Sensible and was talked into a cell phone plan that seemed reasonable right up until the moment I learned that a) the whole package was going to equal half a car payment; b) that I was going to be stuck in this plan for two years; and c) it required a credit check. I do not do credit checks for items physically smaller than a pack of mints, unless these items are nuclear-powered or diamond-encrusted. I think it was the idea of commitment, rather than the credit check, that scared me; I wasn't sure that I wanted to be involved in this relationship. We're moving too fast! I think we should see other providers!

It has occurred to me that perhaps I secretly think that the rules that govern normal social interaction should not apply to me. Other people don't make this much fuss about cellular phones. Then I think . . . what "normal social interaction"? It's not like I'm chewing with my mouth open or not showering; I'm not leering at pre-teens with lust in my heart. I am not engaging in any repugnant behaviour that needs to be curbed. It's a cell phone. Don't judge me.

Repeat this scenario at Verizon, Sprint, and another Verizon.

By this time, I had picked up my housemate Pelu for moral support, which was a mistake, because mostly she just mocked me and called me a Luddite in between asking practical questions about whether or not future lines might be added to my plan at a later date. Oh my God, my plan. My plan, my plan, my plan--I don't have a plan! I just want a cell phone! I'm not Count Olaf scheming over the Baudelaire fortune here!

Eventually, and since I'd pretty much run out of legitimate dealerships, we went to WalMart. WalMart is the last refuge of low-brow shopping. I figured that there, at least, I would be sold a cell phone rather than a philosophy. WalMart has a very comfortable air of hourly-wage desperation; nobody there is being paid nearly enough to try to convince me that I want something I don't. WalMart, for all its other flaws, is very utilitarian--almost mercenary--in its purpose, which is to sell people what they want as quickly and as cheaply as possible, so as to keep the lines moving.

The young lady behind the counter, however, looked sympathetic as I again attempted to explain the concept of a necessary evil. Actually, I suspect the sympathetic look was directed toward my poor housemate, who, after being dragged through five electronic stores, looked a wee bit ragged and more than ready to throttle me if I started up about wanting a field-phone with a hand-crank.

As gently as possible, the salesgirl introduced me to Verizon, patiently extolling its virtues with all the fervour of a pagan priestess wooing a potential convert. "It's a marriage of convenience now," she said, "but you'll grow to love it. Pretty soon you'll wonder how you ever got along without it."

This statement was enough to make me pause in signing the contract. It was exactly as I feared: the damn things exert some sort of mind control, insinuating themselves into your life like tapeworms and eventually sucking up all your free will. Plus it was a very long, detailed contract requiring several signatures, and I've always believed that only the Devil uses that much paperwork.

The phone is white, so as not to get lost in my purse. Her name is Lilith.

Proving once and for all that the thing is demonic in nature, less than three hours after I purchased Lilith, my car broke down on the way back to the office. At night. In the 'hood. I was able to call my boss to tell him my trouble, my house to do the same, the emergency number on my insurance card to get a tow, and to hit a friend on AIM to complain in inadequate fractured English how my cell phone was already attempting to ingratiate itself to me. I have no doubt that Lilith caused my alternator to give out. None at all.

I'd like to say that I will be the one to bind the demon cell-phone in a harness and make it plough my fields. But I'm sure Dr. Faustus thought the same thing on the first day.