It's a tough decision.  You've made Aliyah.  You've chosen a place to live, and you've even found a school for the kids.  You've been the Ministry of Absorbtion, and you have your Rights sorted out.  Now there's just one thing left to do before you're *really* an Israeli.

That's right - you have to decide which Cellphone company you're going to choose.

There's a simple choice: there's a range of interesting companies, with names like Apallingphone, Watermelon, Snailcom, and the like, and they all offer you the same choice of actual handset, (Nuclear or Mozzarella, etc).  The name of package is always exciting, with a typical Israeli phone user in all of the advertising materials, but the actual deal they offer varies.  Sometimes from day to day, or even from minute to minute.

For example, if you call somebody from a Snailcom phone, but the person at the other end is using a Wombatphone, it will cost you six times as much (plus half your shoe size) per minute.  But if they're on the same kind of phone, you have to offer up a Burnt Offering (with appropriate ancillary offerings to the Temple) to compensate the service company for loss of income.  If you phone off-peak, they have to give you a free ocean cruise, but only if you are calling a near relative with green hair, on the Tuesday after Rosh Chodesh, in a leap year (Jewish, not Gregorian...).  As you can see, keeping track of your phone bill is very simple, and they don't have to hide the extra charges - they don't understand them either, so just think of a number, double it, and then pay the bill (with fries and a large cola).

Once you have your phone, and some idea of how much it is going to cost you to actually use it, you can decide what you're going to say, and who you're going to speak to.  The normal custom is to phone somebody from an exotic location, such as right next to the target person, or outside their front door, or maybe somewhere more obvious, like the street - in which case you must claim to be somewhere interesting.  After all, who wants to call a friend and admit to being at the Post Office?  No, you must be calling from the Rings of Saturn, the Moons of Jupiter, or somewhere near the frozen meat counter at the supermarket.  In which case you must find something strange or outlandish to talk about: "Hey, they've got giraffe necks in stock this week, ideal for the soup..."

By far the most important thing is to sound like your life is more interesting than the reality - why call a friend just to tell them that there is water in the kitchen sink - you must inform them of some fascinating piece of news that you've just heard, for example that your neighbour has just climbed Mt. "Nix Olympus" (the tallest mountain on the Planet Mars).  Of course, you can also call about something mundane, and then half way through the call, throw in the fact that you've just seen Elvis over by the bus stop.  Oh, and he was talking to Bigfoot...

It's too late to be the first person in your city, block, or even apartment with a mobile phone, but you certainly don't want to be the last either.  After all, when the medical experts finally prove that excessive mobile phone use causes loss of memory, brain cancer, or a love of Eurovision Song Contest winners, you have to be able to call all of your friends and say "told you so", as they wheel you off to surgery!