Over the weekend, I made some alterations to my cell service plan and added one of my younger siblings to it. Since they wanted a new phone, I had to upgrade my plan and that, unfortunately, meant that the way that I understood cell phone service plans no longer applied. Instead of just “adding a line” to my existing plan and paying a reduced fee for the additonal line, I basically set up a copy of the plan I upgraded to for my sibling. A complete duplicate of all benefits, fees, costs, and everything. I’m still saving a bit of money thanks to adding them, but I’d have saved the same amount of money just changing my plan from what it was to what it is now, a thing I only put off as long as I did because it wouldn’t save me that much money and I simply did not want to think about it. But, years after my initial offer, as they’ve grown further from our parents, my sibling wanted to leave our parents’ phone plan and join mine, so I had to think about it. And am still thinking about since it will take a while for all of that to settle out (as coverage changes, plans update, new numbers/lines become accessible, and so on), which has gotten me thinking about the role that (cell) phone service plays in our lives. After all, when I was young and learning to use the phone, cell phones weren’t as common as they are now. Cell phones became common while I was in high school and smart phones rose to the fore while I was in college, so I’ve gone from having access to an old rotary phone in my parents’ garage to having a front row seat for the rise of voicemail and then the ultimate takeover of smart phones.