Mobile phone frustrations and follies
31st July, 2007
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There are those things that are misplaced and those that disappear into the ether, sucked into the maw of the unseen maelstrom that swirls around us. The maelstrom that swirls around some of us, at least, for there are those who appear to move through life as if they are on a raft drifting across a pond on a still day with nary a ripple to mar their progress. The rest of us are destined to spend our lives battling the headwinds and tidal floods of adversity.
It began when the keyboard of my mobile phone began to vanish. First the numeral 2 went missing, and then the 5 and the 6 and the 9. As a result, sending text messages involved the constant recitation of the alphabet to remind myself which key represented which letters. This could be embarrassing when standing in public places, particularly when you can't remember what comes after "g". When this happens, you are tempted to inform the nearest stranger that you really do have a working knowledge of the English language and use it constantly. It's just the alphabet you have trouble with. The end came when the phone, reduced to five legible numbers, decided to jam its volume level on low. After standing in the middle of Coles on a Saturday morning shrieking, "What? Speak up! Don't forget to buy a horse? What? Oh, I see. Yes. I'll buy some tomato sauce," I decided the time was nigh for the purchase of a new phone. To do this it is necessary to take an intensive course in mobile phone-speak, this being the language spoken by salespeople. English won't do. After any 15-minute conversation with a phone salesperson, you are so confused you will sign up for anything if it means escaping tiresome, obfuscating babble about caps and plans and charges. Much better to just say: "I know I'm going to get screwed. That's the way it works. Just give me the phone." So hateful do I find the experience that, rather than endure it, I postponed it by borrowing a phone from my wife.
"Don't lose it," she warned.
I used it for several weeks and one Saturday afternoon wandered into our apartment, put the kettle on, took the garbage downstairs to the industrial skip and came back upstairs to have a cuppa. Stretching out on the lounge, I reached for the phone which, peculiarly, was not where I had left it. It does not take long to comprehensively search a two bedroom apartment and after five minutes of fruitlessly upending cushions, chairs and old newspapers and peering under tables, I was becoming a teensy bit frantic. Then I recalled the standard procedure - ring your own number and head for the sound of the ring. I did this and was rewarded with an ominous silence. Suddenly, I paled. The rubbish! Perhaps the phone had slipped into the rubbish and been thrown out! I'd done that with the house keys a few months previously. Anything was possible and it was then that inspiration struck. I rang my wife, explained my problem, waited while she told me what I already knew, which was that I was a dickhead, and then told her what I wanted her to do. She was to wait for five minutes, while I ran down to the rubbish skip, and then dial my mobile number. If the phone was in the bin, I'd hear it. I dashed downstairs, crouched by the bin and waited. "Ring!" I muttered desperately, my ear now pressed against the side of the bin. It was then that I became aware of a presence behind me and turned to see a set of knees. Looking up, I saw it belonged to one of my neighbours. "Morning," I said, nodding at the bin. "Just waiting for a phone call." He said nothing and hurried away. The phone never did ring and I found it a week later, switched off and wedged inside a lounge chair. I am beginning to suspect our unit is haunted and that an exorcism may be required. My wife, ever helpful, has suggested a brain transplant. |
