Can you hear me now?

OVER the last 6 months or so, my Nokia cell phone has deteriorated rather steadily. It is one of those non-flip solid phones with rubbery buttons. It started with superficial defects: Paint on the buttons wearing off, screen scratches etc. Then the problems spread to difficulty with actually pressing the buttons, particularly number 6. I prefer to fix these sorts of things myself rather than making use of the warrenty or insurance that it may be under. I take it as a sort of challenge. So I take the phone apart and jam tiny bits of paper in between the rubber buttons and the contact points so that when I press the buttons, it will press harder on the contact points and register as a button press. Easy, low-tech fix and it works... for a while. After about two weeks of success, the button pressing difficulty reverts pretty much back to the way it was before. I figure that this is probably due to the paper bits settling and getting compressed. I open it back up and jam more bits in and close it back up. Again it works but for a limited time only. After this second fix goes bad, I pretty much give up and resign myself to simply pressing very hard on the buttons to get them to work correctly. I don't know if it was a result of the increased pressure inflicted on my phone with each keypress, bad luck or just wear and tear but my phone began to drop calls. My phone would give me a "call dropped" message every time I answered an incoming call or when the other person picked up on an outgoing call. The first time it happened, I didn't know what was going on because it never happened before. After a few calls I got the picture. I would call someone and it would ring, but as soon as they picked up, my phone would drop the call. Then they would call me back to see what I called about, but as soon as I picked up the phone, it would drop the call again. I had to sit there with my phone in hand, impotent to answer it. You can imagine how furious this might have made me. Go ahead, imagine... now multiply that by 5. I was millimeters away from developing hemorrhages in my brain and ulcers in my stomach... and blisters on my feet (from the constant pacing). I think I got so mad because this was not something that was within my power to fix. I could no longer take it in to be worked on because I had already violated the warrenty, and when they opened it, all those paper bits would pour out. I turned to that cure all fix for deviant electronic devices: Pounding it till it works. It worked! It worked for a good solid two weeks or so. Then it started dropping my calls again upon connection again. No amount of pounding would solve it, so I just turned it off in disgust. When I turned it on the next day, it worked again! This happened about three more times roughly a month or so apart. Then just recently it gives me a "no signal" message permanently plastered up on my main screen. Well isn't that just dandy?

So I bought a new one. This one has a camera. It flips shut. When it breaks I'm taking it in.