Yesterday, for reasons not at all necessary to this story, I called my cellphone provider to ask a couple of technical questions. Instead, I was routed to billing, which surprised me, as we pay our bills almost the moment they come in, every month. So I was connected to this chap who inquired, seemingly innocently, how much time I used my cellphone as a modem. I gave him some number or other, but I wasn't worried about it, because when we purchased our cellphones [John and I have the same phone, bought about a month apart], we were told that data connection - i.e. using the phone as a modem, was free.

Apparently not. Are you sitting down? I'm glad I was. I was told that my cellphone bill for the month of March was $13,000. Yes, that's right, all the zeroes are correct - thirteen thousand dollars. I was sitting at the foot of my bed and I got a rush of dizziness and I really and truly thought I was going to faint.

The bottom line so far - Mr. Cellphonerep is going to put us on a monthly billing plan and backdate it so that my charges are gone, at least most of them. But questions do arise....if we have a free data service [which i was too flustered to remember yesterday], why are we paying at all?? And why weren't we charged for February - we had a laptop then, as well, and used the cellphone as a modem, then, too. And the most important question - how could ONE person, who does not spend her life soldered to the internet, run up a $13,000 cellphone bill in one month?? What the hell are their rates? A hundred dollars a minute? I mean, come on.

The other bottom line is that we went to our cable supplier last night and picked up a wireless router. We can use it for up to five computers, and it's going to cost us a whole dollar and fifty cents extra on our cable bill each month.

Thirteen thousand dollars? It still makes me dizzy a day later.