So that sounds like good advice, dunnit? But what exactly is a starter phone? And what of the use cases I outlined would that really work for? And what about the annoyance of potentially having two phones to maintain, keep charged, etc. for different purposes? Whenever I really start digging in to the realities involved, it starts to feel like digging in quicksand, and I don't get very far.

At one point, I mentally walked through the steps needed to actually get a proper burner phone, as an early part of a larger exercise to create a full second "burner" identity (probably not a legal one, granted). It was a huge mess, and just creating enough geographic separation was going to take a lot of time (and gas money). It would also either piss off or alarm the wife, or both. In practical steps, I got as far as having a couple prepaid visa cards sitting around, that might not be easily traced back to me.