Alms for Oblivion

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A dubious gift of attraction
4th April, 2005

It was the loss of my asterisk that put the issue beyond doubt. That and the pink cover. You would be surprised, in this enlightened age, at how many people have difficulty coping with a man carrying a pink mobile phone.

I had not chosen pink but came by it as the result of a failed and misguided attempt to save money, and when the asterisk key detached, took it as a sign from above to get a more blokey phone.

I'd been fondling the display phones for fully five seconds when John the salesperson tackled me, greeting me as one would a man who has just staggered out of the desert, showering me with welcomes and a heady blast of bad breath. Eyes watering and twitching, I backed out of range.

   "I'm just looking," I bleated, glancing around for an escape route.
   "You're in luck," he said, side-stepping and placing himself between me and the door. "We have the manager's special today."

Did they do food as well? It was lunchtime and I wondered what the manager's special would be. Steak, salad and chips? Pie and peas? It was a couple of years since I'd bought a phone. Obviously, the marketing strategies had changed.

   "A free cordless phone," he said beaming as if offering me the keys to the Heavenly Kingdom.
   "I'm pretty right for cordless phones," I said, thinking of the one beside the bed that I knocked over every night and the one in the living room that no matter how carefully I placed in its cradle, was always found beneath a cushion on the lounge.
   "Here," he said, producing a boxed cordless phone.
   "Very nice," I said, "but I've already got two."

But John had grabbed a chair and was sitting in front of a computer screen, pounding at the keys.

"We're having trouble with the system," he said, hitting the keys with sledgehammer blows and with fingers that resembled pork sausages. Just when it seemed the keyboard would shatter and send the alphabet flying across the room, he bawled for help from Marjorie. I gathered from the look on her face that helping John interface with the computer system was one of the less attractive elements of her daily toil.

"Ah, yes," he said as Marjorie made three deft key strokes and the screen flickered into life.
   "I was looking at this one," I said holding up a phone.
   "What you need is one of these," he said, grabbing a different model and reciting its virtues.
   "I'd prefer one of these," I said showing him a flip-top model.
   "There's only one left," he said.
   "I only want one," I said.

There was a pause while he did the mathematics. I wanted one. There was one left. One minus one equalled zero. After I'd bought one, there'd be none left. Satisfied that there were no mathematical impediments to my request, he disappeared and returned with the phone.

   "You'll want insurance," he said.
   "How much?" I asked.
   "Ninety dollars," he said.
   "No thanks," I replied.
   "Ah, mate," he said, leaning forward and looking quickly to his left and then right, his breath advancing before him like an invisible force-field. "I won't say you're an idiot..." he said, pausing mid-sentence.
   "I'm pleased," I said, wondering how he ever managed to sell any phones if he called his customers idiots.
   "No, I wouldn't say that," he said, indicating that in not telling me, I was an idiot, he was doing me a significant favour. "But you should see the pile of phones out the back that we've got to send away to be fixed. Mate, I tell you..." he said shaking his head.
   "If they're that unreliable, I don't think I'll bother buying one," I said.

He looked at me for several seconds as the idiocy of what he had just said penetrated his consciousness.

   "So you don't want insurance," he said, watching his commission flutter out the door.
   "No," I said.
   "You don't really need it anyway," he said as his pork sausage fingers launched another assault on the keyboard. "Bloody system," he groaned. "Marjorie!"

The system again acquiescing to Marjorie's slim digits, he looked up my details.

   "You sure you don't live at The Gap?" he asked.
   "Quite sure," I said.
   "Pity," he said. "I've got a Willems at The Gap."
   "I could shift, I suppose, but it would be a lot of trouble to go to to get a phone," I said.
   "You're right," he said seriously. "It would be. You use the phone a lot in the car?" he asked.

I began to explain that I didn't because, as one of the world's great fumblers, steering a car and using a hands-free phone was life endangering, threatening not only my life, but everyone's within a 100m radius.

   "You need Bluetooth," he said, brandishing an electronic device which I guessed clipped on to the sun visor.
   "I'll be 'right," I said.
   "Bluetooth is amazing. Once you've used it, you'll never go back. It's like Broadband," he persisted.
   "If I try to answer calls and drive, I'll kill people," I said.
   "Righto," he said. "You don't really need it anyway."

Throughout this, my girlfriend had maintained a tactful silence but, as we left with my new phone, she squeezed my hand and said, "Marc..."

   "Yes, sweetie," I said.
   "How is it that you attract wankers wherever you go?" she quizzed.
   "It's a very rare gift," I said.

Alms for Oblivion

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