When I explain to them that I am quite content with my current, very basic plan and my simple little phone that is only a phone and not a laser guidance system, they are always a trifle baffled. I think they have a hard time believing someone wouldn't want or need more gadgetry.

The mobility guys are especially antsy these days as the cellphone market is about to go ballistic with competition. So, necessarily, they would like us all to sign up for long periods of time, preferably the rest of our lives.

When I asked the phone company guy what was in it for me if, say, I signed up for three or six months, he ran off a litany of cool, free gack that was mine for the taking.

Everything from a camera phone to a phone that could hold all of my music to a flip-phone that you could do mammograms with. Wild. But I wanted none of it.

I have a camera that takes beautiful pictures, I already have a thingy that holds all of my music which, even if you factor in the Carpenters Greatest Hits and my Barry Manilow Box Set, is not all that much, and I have a waffle iron that does my mammograms just fine.

Now what? He was seriously backpedalling. I could almost hear him frantically flipping the pages of the Telemarketer's Handbook, searching in vain for the non-existent chapter titled "When they don't want more stuff." Suddenly he was improvising, throwing out a grab-bag of incentives cobbled together from God knows where. How would I like unlimited minutes to Krakow? Free evening calling to my dead relatives? A new phone that was powered by cold fission?

While I had him in this state I was sorely tempted to push him over the brink with a little random idiocy.

"What about a girl?"

"Beg pardon?"

"A girl. I get lonely sometimes."

"Mr. Crone, I don't think we can . . ."

"I'll sign up for five years."

"Blond or brunette?"

I wonder how far they would go. Finally I went in the one direction they really hope you won't go, that they do everything in their power to keep you from going. Dollars. They'll throw free phones and organizers and minutes at you like rice at a wedding, but trying to get them to cut you some slack on the bottom line is like trying to pry a Snickers bar out of a fat kid's hand. They don't like it.

But finally, when his telecommunications back was firmly up against the wall and he could hear the feet of his competitors hungrily beating their way towards my front door, he caved.

I still have my simple little phone that is just a phone. I have my very basic plan now locked in for three months and, best of all, I have some extra cash in my pocket every one of those months. Plus the blond should come in the mail any day now. I had to settle for the inflatable version. I didn't want to seem unreasonable.