Cutting the Electronic Leash/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character throws away their cell phone rather than be bothered by their boss any more.

  • Straight: As Alice and Bob is driving down the highway, Bob calls her cell phone. She picks it up and pitches it out the window.
  • Exaggerated: ...and off the side of a cliff.
    • ... and into an industrial-grade metal shredder.
  • Downplayed: Alice left the phone at home before she got on the road. It rings in the empty room.
  • Justified: Alice had already retired, and Bob had been begging her to do "just one last thing before you leave" over and over.
  • 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.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice throws away the phone her employers gave her, but keeps her personal cellphone - until her boss calls her on that.
  • Averted: Alice just lets the call go to the answering machine, instead.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "You know that phone cost $150, Alice."
  • Invoked: ???
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Carol, in the passenger seat, catches Alice's arm before she can throw the phone out the window.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "I wonder if it ever occurred to the writers that throwing your phone away like that counts as littering."

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