The Associated Press is reporting that a booming business has sprung up outside New York City high schools, where “phone storage trucks” charge kids a dollar a day to keep their phones in storage.  Cellphones, iPods and iPads are banned in all NYC public schools, according to the AP, but the ban is only strictly enforced in the 88 or so schools that have metal detectors.  And that’s where the trucks come in.

As the AP states, “leaving a phone at one of the trucks in the morning and then picking it up at the end of the day has become as routine for city teenagers as getting dressed and riding the morning-rush subway.”  One student quoted for the story has been leaving her phone in the truck run by “Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage” for four years.  Nevermind that one of the trucks was robbed in the Bronx a couple months back, the thieves making off with 200 phones in the process…

But can’t the kids just leave the phones at home?  Apparently not.  “Their phone is like a family member,” one principal told the AP. “It’s like a pet. They love it.”  A PTA president also stated, “In this day and age, especially when many of us still feel the scare of 9/11, students should be able to travel with their phones. Many of these kids come from other boroughs and participate in after-school activities where they are far from home late into the evening.”  Hmm, does a pay phone cost more than a dollar nowadays?

Now call me old-fashioned, but I managed to make it through high school without even owning a cell phone.  Then again, we didn’t need metal detectors at any schools in Calgary, either.  Only in America, I suppose…