Like most people in the Western World, I carry a cell phone. Unlike what seems to be most people in the Western World, it's not surgically attached to my head.

I mean, last Friday, walking up to the restaurant for lunch, I passed a half-dozen people in the parking lot, and each one was on a cell phone. 

Anyway, I do pretty much rely on the thing because it serves as my personal and my business phone.

So panic kind of set in a couple of weeks ago when the main screen — the one on which the contacts list, text function, and all the other good stuff is displayed — went black. Well, it was more a milky-white, really, but displayed information was illegible.

An abrupt encounter with a hard surface — read: I dropped it for about the 8,762nd time — will do that for a cell phone.

I had to get a new one, and trotted over to the nearest, far as I know, Verizon Wireless store at Southwestern Boulevard and Greenville Avenue.

Snagged me a newer model Motorola, paid an extra $25 for them to transfer all my contacts — priceless — and photos over to the new possession, prepared all the rebate documentation, and went on my merry way.