I was at what Mrs. Nickels likes to call “The Frugal Store.” Now, in case you don’t know what The Frugal Store is, I’d be happy to tell you. But see there is a problem. If I tell you the name of the actual store I went to, I could run the risk of copyright infringement, calls from lawyers, lawsuits and so forth. Besides, Mrs. Nickels only allows me so many copyright infringements, calls from lawyers, lawsuits and so forth per week. Since today is Monday and the week just started yesterday, sad to say, I’ve already reached my limit.

So, for the sake of my future and potential legal troubles, not to mention I fear the wrath of Mrs. Nickels, let me say that what will be called The Frugal Store from here on out can be compared to, for the sake of my blog entry, a “99 cent something or another store.”

Anyway, I was standing there in line getting ice, because I’m not going to pay over 2 bucks for ice in the grocery store when I can get it for less than a buck at The Frugal Store. Now, before you ask me what is what is wrong with our ice maker at home, don’t. It’s not important to the story and Mrs. Nickels is still fuming about what I did to it. So, let’s let sleeping dogs lie now, Shall we?

As I am standing there in line holding a cold and almost ready to start dripping bag of ice, I look over to my left and what I saw hanging on hooks in rows was something I haven’t seen in a very long time: A telephone handset.

No curly cord, no square box/base thingy it should be connected to. No, just the handset.

Now, before you think I’ve lost my aged mind, let me explain.

The Frugal Store was selling this telephone handset as a “retro” item. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, what they did was “modernize” this “retro” item.

“How so?” you are probably asking yourself.

Well, it seems that the genius who came up with this winner of an idea, figured out a way of removing that curly cord that we all hated, and replaced it with a USB port and cord so, get this, YOU CAN PLUG IT INTO YOUR CELL PHONE!

Yeah, the concept is that you can you lay your cell phone down on the table, hook up one end of your USB cord to your cell phone, and the other end to this “retro” handset and you can “talk on your phone” using this “retro” handset.

There are so many things wrong with this idea that I don’t have a clue where to begin.

For those of us who have been tied to and talked on a telephone that was either a wall-based unit or a unit that sat on a table and we talked with our heads holding crooked at an unnatural angle of 46.78 degrees just so that we can hold the phone on our shoulders and remain semi-hands free but still tethered by a cord, this “retro” handset is nothing more than a nightmare from our past coming back to haunt us.

Listen, I’ve seen plenty of old movies where the murder weapon of choice was a telephone handset. Do you think I want to go out like that? Are you nuts?

Also, I wear an headset/ear piece so that I can talk on the phone without risking permanent damage to the vertebrates in my neck because I have to, as previously mentioned, hold my head at an unnatural position just so I can talk to a telemarketer and tell him that I am not interested in buying shares in his spinach plantation in southern Uruguay.

And since when did something from my childhood/young adult life become “retro.” Is this payback from my long deceased ancestors who I would say were old because they actually had phone numbers that had words AND letters in them like RICHMOND 9171?

When I saw it, it didn’t make me feel old. A little mad, yes. But not old. No, I feel kind of sorry for the idiots that would shell out money for this useless item from the past just so they can relive a piece of history that is best forgotten.

I was going to end this post on that last paragraph, but this just came in on the newsfeed on my phone: “Today a hipster, who still lived in his parent’s basement and with a six-digit student loan debt, was found beaten to death with some archaic instrument of torture. Not only was the victim bludgeoned by this mysterious weapon, but it was found next to the victim’s head which was strangely cocked at a pre-rigor mortise angle of 46.78 degrees. Authorities are baffled as to what exactly this heinous weapon could be. But reports are telling us that the victim appeared to be using it as a talking device as it was connected to his cell phone. We will keep you updated as this story develops.”