The thing weighed 40 pounds and plugged into the lighter of my car. Every time I used it, I had to have someone jump-start my car, and the phone bill approached Boris Yeltsin's monthly vodka tab. Now, there are hundreds of portable phones going off in my office all the time. I know the phones have become much smaller and lighter, making them just the kind of thing I usually manage to lose. They're also much cheaper now.
Some plans allow hundreds of free minutes every month as an incentive.
I don't spend a hundred minutes on the phone in a year. So I've passed on this modern necessity up to now. Whenever my pager does buzz, I have to pull off the road and find a pay phone. There are about as many working pay phones here in the valley as there are drive-in theaters. Once I find one that works, people look at me like I'm a drug dealer or a pimp.