I used to work in a call-center for a national cellular service provider. I remember when people merely were happy if a cell phone worked. As far as bells and whistles, the biggest request most folks had was for a “flip” phone. It seemed so James Bond at the time.

I was there for a couple of years and before I left, talking to friends while riding the bus or doing groceries just wasn’t the status symbol it once was. Even replacing ring tones with popular ring tunes wasn’t the epitome of cool anymore. Suddenly, every new mobile phone went multi-media.

Monochromatic screens that had once only played exciting pixel-based games like Nokia’s Snake were quickly replaced by full-color displays for browsing the internet, sending emails, playing videos and taking pictures with tiny built-in cameras.

At first, the stuff wasn’t as cool as the marketing hype. It presented a gigantic learning curve for users, billing disputes galore and problems while cellular networks updated to support these “amazing” new features. The gun was jumped before bugs were out.

Nevertheless, today, the former technological nightmare has gone from bad dream to practical reality. However, according to Local 6 in Florida, one mother, Kim Admire sending a photo from her cell of her daughter’s new braces, was shocked by what her brother, Timothy May received instead.

Instead of the pic all other relatives and family friends received of his brace-faced niece, he was redirected to sign into a link. Inside, titled “Shayna’s Braces” like his sister’s JPEG, he witnessed a hardcore toon animation instead.

No lie, May described it as, “Pinocchio is doing something that I don’t think anybody has seen in a storybook.”

Cingular only tried to fix the error after a reporter, Nancy Alvarez of Local 6 contacted them. She explained, “In a statement, (a Cingular representative) apologizes on behalf of the company and calls this a bizarre and isolated incident.”

I’m glad my mother’s cell phone has no extras on it. I couldn’t possibly “brace” myself for her reaction if the same thing happened to her. Her cell provider would be sorry long before the local news called.