Goodbye, 843. Hello, 917.

Post 5 in my dumb phone adventure

Whelp, the SIM card in the BlackBerry didn’t work. I guess I should have seen that coming (hello Apple to Android), but like I said, last night it looked like all systems were go. I went to the Verizon store to ask about the change in billing, and I was pretty much laughed out of the store (again).

But after explaining my intentions, my new (very patient) friend Imtiaz worked with me for over an hour to figure out a solution. After talking through several potential options, there was only real option if I didn’t want to pay to “upgrade” to a basic phone for a month and then “upgrade” again to go back to my iPhone 6:

A burner phone, a new 917 area code, and 30 days of prepaid service.

The silver lining is that I could use the BlackBerry as my burner rather than buy an entirely new phone. Which means I’m only $50 in the hole for this experiment rather than the $100 I thought I’d be earlier tonight.

I really wanted to avoid a new number since that just adds another layer of complexity, and I don’t want to make it hard for other people to get in contact with me for the next 30 days.

But I guess I’m committed now– 843 area code, see you again on February 21st.