I have two cell phones, but I don’t know where they’re at. I’m pissed because I’m paying $50 every month for a plan I don’t use, but I’m scared to cancel it because one day I might need them! So finally I talked Jaime into changing our deal to something cheaper at least.
I rarely use mine - it gets used when I travel. It was a Godsend when I got a flat tire on I-80 in the middle of Iowa. I turn it on only when I’m away from home - if I remember. My husband, my children, and my brother have the number plus I’ve given it to a few people who I meet socially in the event that they must change or cancel a lunch or dinner appointment at the last minute - and that’s happened only once when someone was going to be unavoidably late.
I have one, but it’s never been activated. Came with the car and, upon inquiry here, I was advised that it should be able to reach 911 without a service provider. That’s all I’d want it for.
I’ve talked on a cell phone 4 times that I can remember, all of those being business related calls where someone else in whose company I was handed me theirs, coincidently one of those occasions being this morning.
I enjoy being unreachable at times.
I use mine every day - but only because I make calls to my parents from it. It’s cheaper to use it for long distance. Other than that, it stays off all day, and I would only use it for emergency purposes.
Susaan
I bought one after 9/11, and it has come in handy on very rare occasions—calling someone to tell them I’ll be late; or on vacations instead of expensive hotel phones. But I’ll use it maybe once a month,* tops*.
I thought you rode the train more often than that, sweetie! 
My cell phone lives in the car and is only rarely taken out. My mother thought I really needed it in college, and she continues to pay the whopping 8$ a month bill (it has no free minutes or other such features.) It has been useful in minor emergencies (calling for a tow, playing phone tag with friends.) I despise talking on the phone in general, I get distracted and bored and prefer face-to-face interaction. I think if I purchased one of those miniscule tiny phones that I would use it slightly more often - I sometimes will want to make a call and then realize that phone is in the car (because I hate lugging it around), and I don’t have the car.
I almost never used to use one, but when I had to move out of my home for several months due to a fire, my cell phone became my primary phone. I use mine more frequently now, but still not very often. I use the free long distance after 9 and on the weekends, and I occasionally make quick calls from my car, along with a few other occasional calls.
When I move later this year, I will probably shop around for a better cell phone deal and use my cell as my primary phone, since long distance, voice mail, and caller ID are included in most packages, and it will probably be cheaper in the long term than a land-line package. I’ll keep a land-line at home for emergencies. If I weren’t a single woman living alone, I probably wouldn’t even do that. But I will continue to keep the cell phone on silent mode 99% of the time I’m away from home. I consider the cell phone to be a convenient way for me to reach others, not a convenient way for them to reach me.
I don’t own one either, and with everyone I see who has one, and with all the advertising, I figured I was the only one.
And clearly I’m not averse to technology - I post here, pay bills online, etc. So I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one.
I may get one someday, probably for the safety aspect in case I get stranded somewhere. But since I rarely talk on the phone for any reason, it won’t be something I use too frequently.
We bought one when I was pregnant. Since we were going to have to drive from NJ to Manhattan when I was in labor, we figured it would be good to have in case of an emergency. We never had to use it.
We take it whenever we go anywhere in the car, just in case. We never receive calls on it (I can’t even remember the number off hand). We’ve never used it for an emergency.
When my husband goes into the city for any reason (he’s a freelance journalist) he brings the phone with him, but almost never uses it. When I telecommute, I use the cell to call into my office for messages if my husband is doing a phone interview for a story.
We never, ever come close to using all the minutes we buy every month and we always have to roll them over to the next one. But it’s cool to have in case of an emergency. I just can’t understand why people feel the need to be in touch while they’re away from home or the office. I like being incomunicado when I’m out.
My parents bought one for me when I broke down in the middle of nowhere (full story in FCM’s recent MPSIMS thread about towing, which I’m too lazy to link to) and I was faced with walking several miles so that I could get to a phone from which I could call for towing.
I use it when I’m at work but need to take care of personal business, and I used it in one memorable occasion when a friend called needing directions to Princeton from the airport at 11:30 on a Friday night. Other than that, sees essentially no use.
I have an analog phone on a pre-paid plan, and while I usually have it with me it’s turned off. I try to remember once a month to make a call so I don’t lose the time I bought.
So far its main use has been to call a cab when I’ve forgotten to leave the bar before the busses stop running.
I don’t have a cell phone, having no real need or desire for one. I dislike phones very much.
However, my dad has a cell phone for emergencies and such, and I’ve borrowed it a few times for situations where a phone would be helpful. But I don’t think I would get one of my own unless I had very good reason…except maybe one of the prepaid ones. Those are kinda spiffy.
I’ll get a cell phone when I start to cheat on my wife, so the girlfriend doesn’t have to call me at home or work. Otherwise, I have no need for one.
Hey! Wait a minute! My wife has one! 
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
I have one but just a very few people have the number. It’s pretty much just so wifey can reach me if she needs something picked up on the way home. I’ll take a short call while driving if the traffic isn’t bad but I’ll never make one. I, like everyone else, am not smart enough to do both at the same time.
Mom got me one and is constantly telling me to turn it on, but I don’t like being leashed. I do like knowing I could use it in case of emergency.
-
-
- I have a pre-paid one that the minutes have expired on. My mom got it for me after I was in a minor traffic accident+because I had to do a stint of work in the big city (I live in the outlying area). I had discussed getting one myself, but haden’t actually done it. My job didn’t require it, but it did make things lots easier a couple days, so for that reason I’m not against carrying one–but I knew I wouldn’t be using outside of business hours, and I never use the landline at home, except to jerk around telemarketers that call. So until this job, I had no interest at all in a cellphone. So I decided that I wanted a prepaid phone you see, as I knew I wouldn’t use it much… -and… -nobody wanted to sell me one…
-
- When I went around shopping and asked about prepaid phones, all I got for answers was “we got this one or two but nobody round here dont know nuthin about it”, yet the same people could go on for a half an hour about how the latest, smallest phone lets you send e-mail, play games, has three hundred different ringtones (all annoying) and every other fucking completely retarded feature that 12-yr olds would think was cool, but that has nothing to do with talking on a phone. So I’d turn around and leave. I went to the four biggest cellphone places around and explained to all that I wanted a prepaid and why, and they insisted that it was a bad deal, and that paying $30-$40-$50 a month for the GameBoy BlabberMouth +MP3 was the way to go because “you’ll use it all the time”. So I had walked out of all four places, and I didn’t know anywhere else right off to try, but wasn’t real concerned about it.
- The phone I got had some amount (?) of minutes included, and mom bought another amount (?) so the phone started out with 220 minutes of talk time on it. After about three months, the last time I called anybody before the minutes expired, it had 189 minutes still left on it–and it seemed to round up to the next minute, and it charges you for time spent getting messages.
I got one message during that time.
It was a message from Sprint, with a recorded special offer on buying more minutes.
~
I don’t know if pay phones are easy to find anywhere anymore, and this is one reason that I would think about getting one in future (reluctantly!), if I start taking more trips with the kids. Recently I went to the Big City for the day with them, and halfway home stopped for dinner/babynursing. By the time I got back on the road, it was much later than I had figured on, and I had to try two payphones before I could reach mr. genie. I could really have used a cellphone about then…
I don’t have a cell phone, but it definitely has occurred to me that it would come in handy for emergencies, such as getting lost on the way to a job interview, or having to call AAA if I had a car problem on the road. I’m sure there are cell phone plans out there to accommodate minimal users, but still I can’t seem to make myself actually research companies and plans.
If I did have a cell phone, it would live in the car and be used only for emergency situations like the ones I mentioned. For “regular” phone conversations (I range from a minimalist to a moderate here), I prefer to be comfortably indoors, stretched out on the couch or bed. 
No cell phones here, although if we we’re so broke, we would get one for the new teenage driver to take with him when he’s driving for emergencies only.