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How not to sell mobile phone accessories

I recently entered the 21st century and bought a mobile phone with a color display, a camera, and the ability to play Paul Westerberg's "Waiting For Somebody" when my husband dials my number. It also does a lot of other geeky non-phone-related stuff, so I felt like I should probably buy some accessories for it to make it feel important. That's how I found myself comparison shopping between the official Cingular store and the little random phone accessory shops that dot the fringes of Market Street in downtown San Francisco.

I wandered into "AllCity Phonez2Go" or some such outfit, poked around a bit, and asked the salesperson why their plain headset thingy cost 40 percent more than the identical one in identical packaging at the Cingular store. The guy tried to convince me that the expensive one at his chintzy store was the real thing (a genuine $1 earbud marked up 2500%), while the one at the Cingular store was a cheap knock-off. (Uh-huh.)

Things got peculiar when he discovered that my phone has Bluetooth, meaning it is compatible with those hilarious Star-Trek-esque wireless headsets that hook over your ear. "You know, you really should go wireless, because those things aren't as safe," he said, nodding to the old-school wired headset I had just been examining on the counter. "You know, cervical cancer and all."

I was a bit taken aback, and I think he sensed my puzzlement, because he very deliberately mimed the motion of putting on a wired headset and sliding the phone into his pocket, where presumably, the mysterious waves radiating from it could possibly cause cervical cancer.

Never, ever in my life has someone summoned the threat of cervical cancer to try to sell me something. And I hope to god never again. But what the hell was he thinking? Does he even know what a cervix is?

I'm thinking not, because no person in his right mind would talk to an unknown woman -- a potential customer, no less -- about the health of her cervix. I don't even want to hear that stuff from any of the men I actually know. And he probably meant ovarian cancer anyway. Idiot.

Even more peculiar was the implication that with a wireless headset, which is an item I'd consider buying for for its convenience, I could place my call and then walk 20 feet away from the phone to protect my internal organs from its deadly rays. What they really should be selling at that store is tin-foil hats and coveralls. I'm sure they'd fly off the shelves.

June 1, 2006 9:03 PM