I have long had a love-hate relationship with my iPhone. I don’t know how I ever lived without the GPS and I love having a camera at the  ready every time I see something weird or my dog does something cute. But I hate feeling constantly connected to the internet. I almost never use it to check my email unless I’m traveling for work, and I only really use it for Facebook when I’m mobile uploading a picture — or I’m on an awesome trip and feel the need to tell everyone what I’m up to, but there are fewer and fewer of those trips lately. I don’t allow push notifications because I don’t want to be pestered every time I get an email or a Facebook message.

But my ancient iPhone 3G — yes, I said 3G…not even a 3Gs — has been in its death throes for a while now. The screen has some lines across it (that’s what happens when your cat realizes knocking things off your bedside table will get you out of bed) and when I try to play Angry Birds it usually shuts down on me. Forget about DrawSomething… it takes days… But the real problem is the aforementioned GPS. Every time I need to plug in an address it freezes up on me. I could go to my laptop and print out directions before I can even type in my destination on my iDinosaur.

So when I was wandering through the woods yesterday with my friend and our dogs, and he reminded me that Apple had just announced the new iPhone 5 and that the older models would now be discounted, I decided it was time to bite the bullet. I couldn’t keep hemming and hawing about my love-hate relationship with smartphones. Yes, it may be taking over my life, but it also allows me to answer work emails while taking leisurely walks with my dog, and stream NPR no matter where I am. And if it wasn’t for my phone’s GPS, I’d probably still be driving around some bad neighborhoods. I had to stop kidding myself; I was never going back to an old-fashioned phone.

While I was committed to updating, I am not — as you can probably tell — someone who runs out and gets new phone every time a guy in a black turtleneck tells me to. As cool as Siri is, I watched all of my friends use her for a week and then kick her to the curb after a couple of weeks. I certainly didn’t care if my screen was a half-inch bigger. (I’ve never understood what the fuss about screen size is…) In fact, I often find myself looking at people who are impressed by features that are virtually useless (and not just on iPhones) and nothing bugs me more than paying for something I’m never going to use.

Also, I have a huge crush on Jimmy Kimmel.

So I marched down to my local AT&T store, and after arguing with them about whether or not I was eligible for an upgrade, I finally got an iPhone 4 — for 99 cents.

Yes, I’m a few years behind the times, but the phone is still way better than the one I was using yesterday and I didn’t have to go into debt to pay for it.