therapy via the means of buying a phone

So, you've been in America a couple of days, things are going well, you've managed to buy a skype headset for under 80 dollars, you're feeling pretty damn clever. Whats the next step? Buying a phone of course! How are you supposed to contact all of the friends you've made without buying a phone? (and by 'all of the friends' I obviously actually mean 'my mum, because if I don't she gets panicked, hacks into my email and rings a random American man who's only connection with me is that he's shown me his apartment for about seven minutes and asks him where the hell I am. He then emails me saying 'call your mom' and never ever contacts me again re apartment.' thanks mum. thanks for that.)

Where was I? Ahhh yes. Le phone. So, with a spring in my step and a smile in my heart on a sunny NY day, I hop into the nearest phone shop. And something is a little strange. The only way I can describe the ambiance of this shop is you know that feeling when you walk into a room containing a couple you know well, who've just had a massive, traumatic and really personal argument? and you can just feel that the room is full of hate, even though technically, they're smiling and wearing name badges and headsets and pointing at lots of phones? you know? exactly. it was like that. So springing slightly less and trying to avoid the hurt and angry glances firing between the various staff members, I wander around the shop in the way that British people do- which is that even though I know exactly what I want, I know that I'm going to need someone's help and I certainly can't leave until I get it..I'm just going to wander round a bit just in case somehow I can figure it all out on my own.
I can't.
Obviously. All I can do is get kind of entranced by the noisy and exciting display of Tom-toms (or American equivalant, look chill out, we're going for style not substance here ok?) There's one that, for some reason, boasts 'customise the journey to fit your own personality!'- whilst showing the generic road 'sat nav-y' picture, but you can set your 'car' to be a picture of a baby. Or a hawk. Or a police helicopter. Now for me, all of those things only cater to one personality. The personality of a twat. I'm torn away from these musing by a resentful voice saying 'Ma'am, can I help you?' I turn to see one of the staff standing in front of me, arms crossed, hurt in eyes, and I think to myself, this is going to take some time. A really long time. I can just sense it. And it does. I'm not going to go into the forty five minutes (forty five minutes!) it took for her to get a box and make the system go 'bleep' with it, I lived it once and I have no intention of living it again. But I did want to share one thing. For a security question, generally the question you ask is mother's maiden name? Yes? Correct me if I'm wrong here. But in this shop, (and its now that I see why emotions run high and fast here) the generic question is 'who was your first kiss?'. And it throws me totally. Surely to ask someone that question the things in our hands should contain more vodka than its possible for phones to contain. But she's looking at me, expectantly, and I'm English for God's sake, if someone asks me something I'm not going to just not answer like some sort of savage.
So I open my mouth- and there I'm a bit stuck. Because the problem is that I don't know the name of the boy I first kissed. My first kiss was at an under 18's disco where I kissed a stranger because Leah Stevenson had told me that if you hadn't kissed someone by the time you hit 13 you were probably a lesbian. She bet me 5 pounds I wouldn't do it. I was short, freckly and could see no signs of breasts advancing any time soon. I did not need 'lesbian' thrown into the mix right then. Oh god. the shame. And I never got the fiver.
So imagine all of the above happening in my brain in about a second and a half. None of the above, you might have noticed, is an appropriate password. But my mouth is open, and out of nowhere, the name 'Adam' just comes out. This is a bit weird. Phone woman, not noticing anything out of the ordinary, begins the long process of typing the word 'adam' into the system. And i realise that Adam was the name of my primary school boyfiend Adam bloody Toft. and is probably the boy that secretly, I've always wished had been my first kiss. Bloody hell. I just wanted a phone. By this point I'm feeling a bit hurt and resentful myself, so I grab the bag, wait another 15 minutes while she puts the money I hand to her in a drawer and leave the shop of unearthed emotional trauma (we also do phones), hopefully forever.

A small post script to this story. The phone I bought was ten dollars. That, for those who don't know, is pretty bloody cheap. well done me? well done me. However, I did start to notice that I got a couple of funny looks whilst on it. Its fine, i thought, its my quaint and charming accent, they've never heard such beautiful sounds before. Now. I was relating these slightly weird looks to the man I'm renting an apartment from. He asks to see the phone. I show it, with the pride of someone who's just bought a phone for 10 dollars that isn't even made out of wood. He bursts into laughter. This is a bit harsh. I spring to the defense saying

'look I know it's not got a camera or anything but-'
'No no. Tarsh, do you know what kind of phone this is?'
'erm.. yeah. Virgin mobile. It says it on the front. look-'
'No. Tarsh. These phones are known as the phones that drug dealers buy. Everyone knows that. because they're so cheap you can use them once and then throw them away. So they can't be traced.'

Oh bloody fantastic. Not only am I an immigrant, I'm an immigrant with a possible very well disguised drug trafficking trade on the side. If massive black guys start asking me fo some crack yo on the subway I'm really, REALLY not going to be happy about it. Christ. Gonna need some physical backup. Maybe all is not lost with Abdahl....