[To the tune of Mission: Impossible]

Among the wonders of our time, one must be the ability to pick up a phone (your gum pack-sized cell phone will do) and call anyone almost anywhere in the world damn near instantly. Lickety split, it's faster -- and some would say easier -- to talk to someone halfway around the world than to nuke a bowl of ramen.

And just like a bowl of ramen, you might think that the specifics don't matter. Whatever phone (or brand of ramen) you use, the result's going to be the same. Same call quality. Same salty, vaguely bouillony taste. (That's the MSG you're tasting, by the way.) And you might think it's going to be cheap either way too. Phone calls and ramen are cheap -- why else would you want to live in the 21st century? At least this is what I thought before visiting Canada.

Back in July I visited Canada for a day and made a 15-minute phone call to the States on my cell phone. Oops. Ka-ching! That's the sound of the cash register at T-Mobile ringing up the cost of my call.

Lately I've been wondering how not to make that mistake again. I've been Googling upways and down, frontways and back, like Tom Cruise in Mission:Impossible before he types in "Job 3:14". And what I've been finding is a weird, wired world. One of quasi-laws and numbers that map to no physical locations. Untraceable cards and websites written in mangled English. The goal was simple: Call Canada cheaply. But now I'm watching my back because I'm afraid a SWAT team from a joint FCC/ATF task force is going to come take me away. I've started using an anonymizer to cover my tracks. I'm doubting everything I'm reading. And I trust no one, Mr. Mulder.

Cue up the music. I'm about to take you deep underground.

[To be continued...]