I’ve apparently lost touch with reality and am actually entertaining the brainless notion of buying a new “smart” phone. Which obviously means that it’s inevitably going to be more intelligent than I am and I’ll have to mercifully drop it out my car window on I-5 North when it challenges my ever-dwindling intellectual authority.

I am notoriously impatient with all things electronic, and many devices have met their digital maker for even the smallest infraction. Yet I feel the need to spend in excess of 400 hard-earned, whiskey-soaked dollar bills so that I can wax geek intellectual and buy a new smart phone.

Unfortunately, the United States of Embezzlement has a neat little stranglehold on the cell phone industry. If you want the cool snazzy new phone, then you’ll have to sign a two-year contract with one of the big cell companies. Who will then siphon your bank account for using the features the phone already comes with.

Cingular Wireless was recently killed and eaten by AT&T, which must be why my phone drops a call four times on my 10-minute drive to work. Not to mention they are the sole provider that offers the apparently divinely-inspired iPhone from Apple.

Unfortunately, what seems like a cool handheld device has turned into a cultural icon. Every schmuck in town feels the need to show off how fancy his iPhone is.

Yeah, we get it. Blonde highlights, orange tans and a fake Rolex require that you also own an iPhone. So when I see you trying to impress people with a phone your mom bought you, you remind me of something that rhymes with smooshbag.

Verizon has those commercials with that goober and his “Can you hear me now?” catchphrase. Yeah turdwaffle, we hear you. You’re just not funny. Or

relevant for that matter.

I dislike Verizon because everyone I know has it and just raves about how wonderful the service is. Why do I hate it? One word — spite. That’s why.

Sprint and T-Mobile are like the dorks of the cell phone world. Nice enough guys, but not someone you’d socialize with and you would usually just make fun of them when they walk away.

At least we don’t have those half walkie-talkie/half-foundation bricks that they called cell phones 15 years ago.

Those things looked like cancer devices. It’s like strapping an X-ray machine to your skull. No wonder people in the 80s dressed so crappy.

I think the sooner people in the U.S. realize that we’re getting fleeced by our cell phone companies the better. What started as a means of communication and convenience has turned into a gaming device, text machine, GPS, and a horde of other things that most people just aren’t going to use.

Let’s just all remember why we got a mobile phone in the first place. For all those just-in-case scenarios that we’ve all been subject to at one point or another in our lives.

Who am I kidding? I want an iPhone. I’m such a smoosh ...