How my mother's phone changed my life

So there I was, I had my android but had no idea how to actually make the most of it.
My mother had a Samsung Omnia, which had Windows mobile 6, and was not quite happy with it. It wasn't easy to personalize, there wasn't a market to get apps to make your phone work the way you wanted like Android or iOS and my mother is the kind of person who likes things her way... And she had to do things the Omnia way. I'm talking about my mother's phone right now because that changed my Android life forever... she saw everything I could do with my phone and how I could change things to adapt to my liking and quickly decided she wanted one too, but she didn't want a phone with a physical keyboard - like my Motorola Milestone.
By this time our mobile operator was offering the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and I thought that it would fit her needs. So we went to our mobile operator store to get one for her. When we got there the attendant showed it to us - yes, I went with her, I always go with her to anything that regards technology to help her out - she liked it and said that this was what she wanted. Then she told us the price and my mother got immediately deflated. She doesn't like to spend too much money on gadgets, but then the attendant told us that there was a way to pay less. Because we had unlimited data plans we were VIP costumers and could schedule a meeting to discuss pricing and get special discounts. So when we got home I went and scheduled a visit to their VIP section for both me and my mother. By then the idea was to get a new phone for her but with back to back appointments there would be more time to negotiate. I had no clue at that point that I wouldn't need a lot of time.
The day we went for our VIP appointment we got there early and waited a bit. When the meeting started I explained the situation: the back to back appointments, the phone my mother wanted, and that I was there mostly to help her, but that I wouldn't mind getting a new phone myself. The moment that the attendant told us that we both could get the Xperia X10 for FREE, we couldn't believe it and gladly accepted it!
And just like that, almost as accidentally as I got my first android I got my second one. Now that I had two androids I could afford to crash one of them! So I started going around the web to see how I could make my brand new Xperia X10 even better. I quickly found out about debranding. And how that would release from the "curse" of having a device in a country that doesn't get much attention from manufacturers. After a hole lot of googling around I found XDA and their forums. And then, and only then, a good six months after I first got my hands on an android, I started understanding how much I could do with it...