Cutting the Electronic Leash/Playing With
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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