Basic Trope: A character throws away their cell phone rather than be bothered by people calling them.
- Straight: As Alice is driving down the highway, Bob calls her cell phone. She picks it up and pitches it out the window.
- Exaggerated: Alice snaps the phone in half, smashes it to pieces with a landline, whizzes the whole thing through a blender and gives it to her friend, saying "Eat this. And then you know that bridge over the freeway? Shit off it."
- Downplayed:
- Alice decided to leave the phone at home. When Bob calls, it rings in the empty room.
- When Bob calls her cell phone, Alice takes out the battery.
- Alice just turns the phone off.
- Justified: Alice had already retired, but still has her old work phone in her handbag. Bob calls it for the first time in months, begging her to do One Last Job.
- Inverted: Alice buys a cell phone to make sure that Bob can get in touch with her.
- Subverted: Alice rolls down the window to throw the phone out, but decides against it.
- Double Subverted: However, when she takes the call and hears Bob's demands, she pitches it out after all.
- Parodied:
- Alice cuts the string on a Tin-Can Telephone.
- Alice gets an annoying phone call, and throws her phone over her shoulder. There's a loud yell from a nearby cubicle, and her landline rings — "That hurt! You could have just said no!" She rips the phone out of the wall and throws that over her shoulder.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice just lets the call go to the answering machine, instead.
- Enforced:
- The segment is an advertisement for a mountain retreat specifically offering isolation from the outside.
- There needs to be some explanation for why Alice can't just call 911 while in a disaster/being chased by a killer/whatever.
- Lampshaded: "You know that phone cost $150, Alice."
- Invoked: "He's not going to stop calling you, Alice — just throw away the damn phone."
- Exploited: Diane just so happens to be walking down the street looking for a phone when Alice tosses hers out the window.
- Defied: Carol, in the passenger seat, catches Alice's arm before she can throw the phone out the window.
- Discussed: "You are not a TV character, Alice. You cannot just chuck your phone out a window or in the river, you need it."
- Conversed: "I wonder if it ever occurred to the writers that throwing your phone away like that counts as littering."
Back to Cutting the Electronic Leash.
