Froggy's World - Alms for Oblivion (Weblog)

Mobile phone follies and foibles
23rd January, 2008

It was akin to that scene in the Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch in which the pet shop owner asks John Cleese what is wrong with the parrot he had bought there.
     "I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it," says Cleese.
     "No, no, 'e's uh ... resting," says the shop owner.
Instead of a parrot, I was clutching a mobile phone but it was as dead as Cleese's bird.
     "It died on me," I said, proffering the slim, six-month-old, expensive piece of cutting-edge technology to the phone shop person.
     "What do you mean?" he asked.
     "A message came up saying, 'Phone start-up failed. Contact your dealer.' Then the screen went dead," I said.
It has been my experience that those who deal in technology are reticent to concede that it sometimes fails and this person was one of these.
     "What happened then?" he asked.
     "Not a lot," I answered. "It's obviously broken and it's almost new. I want it fixed or a new one."
     "Ah," he said and disappeared with it for five minutes. "It's not actually broken," he said when he returned.
     "But the screen is blank and you can neither make nor receive calls. It's broken," I said.
     "No, it's not broken," he insisted. "What it needs is a software update. What happens with these phones is that in the time it takes for them to get from the factory to Australia and then to us, the software changes and it has to be updated," he said, as if explaining the operation of a light switch to a three-year-old.
     "So, I have to drive in here, pay to park, walk to the store and give you my phone for a couple of days because of a 'software update'?" I asked, the red mist of rage descending.
     "That's right," he smiled, obviously pleased that I finally understood what he was saying. "Have you sent your contact numbers to your SIM card?" he asked. The answer, of course, was in the negative. "They'll all be lost when they do the software update," he said.
     "Wonderful," I said. I have ten thumbs and it takes 15 minutes for me to record one number in the phone's contact directory.
     "And you need to take this," he added, handing me a very small piece of black plastic. "It's your memory card," he said, seeing the blank expression on my face.
     "Of course. What do I do with it?"
     "Keep it," he said.
The memory card, I knew, was destined to be lost. I am not the sort of person to be trusted with very small things and so it was that I put it in what I thought was a safe place and 12 hours later I was unable to find it. I'd lost my memory, and not for the first time.
In place of my phone I was given another of the same brand but a different model, which meant I had absolutely no idea how to do anything except make and receive calls. It also had a different ring tone which I found impossible to recognise, so I spent two days missing calls before I was able to reclaim my own phone.
     "Where's your memory card?" asked the phone person when I turned up to collect my software-updated phone.
     "I can't remember," I said. "Can you give me a new one?"
     "You'll have to buy one," he said.
     "How much?" I asked.
     "Fifty dollars."
Apart from wasting several valuable hours and enduring significant inconvenience, I would now have to hand over $50 to replace the memory card I would never have lost if the phone person hadn't taken it out of my phone.
     "I don't suppose you sell parrots?" I asked him as he handed over my phone.
     "Parrots?"
     "Never mind," I said, and walked out of the store.

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