There’s a sort of mag­ic to using phone cards. Every card pur­chased is a new key, and every brand tried is a dif­fer­ent voice and card-stiff­ness. With all the hid­den fees and secret costs, it always makes me won­der what is in store as I scratch away the metal­lic blind. Some stores only sell the “phone receipt” now, a piece of paper print­ed on the date of pur­chase, com­plete with num­bers and key, because peo­ple sell­ing the phone cards to stores are being robbed of their card-filled brief­cas­es. The receipt works the same way as a card, but lacks the tan­gi­ble feel of a sol­id card. Calling some­one should always be this fun.