I can haz Android?

So we bundled together all of our current mobile phone info* and trundled down to the Verizon store this afternoon.

*No, it wasn’t, but we thought it was.

This is the Verizon store down by the local Home Depot, and I was astonished that the parking lot was full in front of it at 5:00 on a Sunday. “What would all those people be doing inside the Verizon store at dinner time on a Sunday?”

Well, buying phones, evidently, because there were many, many people inside.  Who knew?

We were there to try and bring sanity to my mad phone desires and our current phone configuration.

The various factors:

1. I wanted a Droid Incredible.
2. I can’t get that on AT&T, my current carrier.
3. Margie is on Verizon.
4. Margie uses my old Treo to access her company mail, etc.
5. Margie’s not actually on the list of folks who should be able to access the company network, but nobody has quite gotten around to telling her that formally, but they may make a formal ruling on that in the next month or so.
6. I really wanted an Droid Incredible.
7. Margie’s on Verizon.
8. Margie’s company offers a Verizon discount.
9. My company offers a Verizon discount.
10. I recently, as part of my company’s mobile divestiture, moved my Blackberry Curve from a company phone to my own phone under AT&T.
11. Margie’s plan is overkill for the use she makes of it.
12. We could probably do much better with a family plan.

Whew.  You can see why we didn’t just hop on the Internet to do this.

In the end, though, it all worked out remarkably simple.  Of course, as Margie notes, it’s in Verizon’s interest to Make This All Work.

In about half an hour of chatting with a very pleasant Verizon rep holding an ingenious tablet computer (plus an emergency lookup of my AT&T account number, which we had not printed out (stupid, stupid rat creature!), which required me to dig up my att.com password, which was possible thru LastPass on my Blackberry), we were able to work it so that:

1. I will be getting a Droid Incredible, maybe as soon as Wednesday, shipped to my home.
2. We will be on a Verizon family plan, which mostly means that we will have more minutes than we (esp. Margie) will ever possibly use, paying less than we’re paying right now.
3. We will have a $100 credit toward Margie getting a new phone (however the Powers that Be decide) (I’m urging a Droid Eris for her, as a light-weight Android phone, thus letting us share apps).
4. If I ever even think of changing my mind about this (phone, carrier) for the next two years, I will be boiled in oil, forfeit my first-born child, and be thrown into the stocks in the public square.

Whatever.  I’m now Officially Excited about #1, and beginning to plot out what apps I’ll need to acquire …