Brent Batten: Cell phone roulette doesn't make me a terrorist

Allow me to assure you I am not a terrorist.

I'm not even a gangster.

I know it looks suspicious. I know the Patriot Act was passed to combat things like this. But there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I've had four different cell phones in the past five months.

You see, it's not me. Well, part of it is me, but not all of it.

I didn't want to switch cell phones. I liked my old cell phone. I wasn't trying to avoid detection or dodge wiretaps.

It was the company. They made me do it.

You see, I had my own cell phone. I paid the monthly fee and the company reimbursed me for whatever work-related calls I made.

Then the company offered to buy me a new cell phone. They paid the monthly fee and I'd reimburse them for whatever personal calls I made. I couldn't pass up a deal like that. It would be un-American, wouldn't it?

So I switched.

The new phone was smaller, which women dig, and had cool features, like games you could play while waiting for return calls. I especially liked the one that was based on the old game show "Concentration." Remember Bill Cullen? Whatever happened to him? But I digress.

Anyway, things were going along swimmingly until -- this is embarrassing -- I ruined the phone. It was an accident, I swear. I was staying at my mother-in-law's and I didn't have an alarm clock so I used the phone to check the time in the middle of the night and when I set it back down I put it right in the glass of water I kept by the bed. I mean, what are the odds? It's really kind of funny when you think about it, right?

So I had to get a new phone.

At that point, you were probably there in Washington wondering, "What's this guy up to?" but it couldn't have been more innocent. Honestly.

Then last week, when I got yet another cell phone, it probably set off red lights and sirens at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which is why I'm writing.

It was the company again. Someone offered a better deal than the phone with all the games and, as companies are wont to do, they went for it.

So now I have my fourth phone since summer and you think I'm up to no good.

I'm not any happier about it than you are.

I've had to tell my friends that I've got yet another cell phone number, prompting them to give my that "What are you, some kind of terrorist or gangster?" look.

I've lost all my games and I've had to learn how to work a whole new phone with a whole new 224-page instruction manual full of stuff I'll probably never need. What are the chances I'll ever use the voice actuator to make a hands-free conference call?

My new phone is one of those flip-up deals. I asked the sales rep how to flip it up with one quick motion, like a "Star Trek" communicator, and she said I should open it slowly with two hands. Can you believe it? The last person I saw answering the phone with two hands was in Hooterville.

Anyway, I just wanted to put your mind at ease. I pose no threat to national security.

If you have any questions, call me at home. I haven't learned my new cell phone number.

E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com.