Sunday 5 March 2017

Mobile Madness


And so to the continuing saga of one Grumpy Old Writer versus the vagaries modern life. You remember the passport debacle, don't you? And the bank one?

Last week, after Storm Doris had passed over Hedges Towers, I noticed that the uStupidphone was only letting me make 'emergency calls'. This was worrying because a week before, while driving with BH to Aldi, I'd been rung by the police, completely out of the blue. Bit of a shock. Apparently they'd had a 999 call from my phone, presumably to alert them to the fact that it was being kidnapped and taken to Luton.

I was able to reassure the kind policewoman that I was OK and I had not, in fact, called them, but it was slightly disconcerting all the same. Anyway, I wandered into the office, where BH was dickering about on the laptop, and showed him the screen. And of course his phone was working perfectly. So I decided to get the bus & take it to the EE shop.

With hindsight, I think my mistake might have been trying to sort it myself while on the bus. Yes. Because by the time I walked through the EE door I'd managed to lock myself out of my own phone which was quite an achievement, given that it cost under £10 and has a level of complexity so low you couldn't limbo under it. All of which goes to show that nothing is so idiot-proof that it can't be broken in the hands of a real expert in idiocy.

Eventually after a certain amount of button pressing and sighing, the 12 year old in the blue overall behind the EE Tech Support desk told me I had to contact EE itself and ask for the PUK code .. whatever that was. Returning on the bus, I was still locked out of my own phone which might for all I knew, be covertly contacting the Home Office and arranging for me to be deported.

Luckily once he'd stopped eye-rolling, BH kindly rang the EE people for me and they coughed up the code, which he inputted as my elderly arthritic fingers are notoriously unreliable and we only had 3 goes before the whole ghastly lockout cycle would begin again. Then another EE man checked our post code and said that the damage had been caused by Doris knocking out their phone mast and they would, in the light of my total incompetence (implied), send me reassuring updates by text.

Which they did and over the next few hours, I had four texts reassuring me that my phone was now working perfectly, which it clearly was as I was getting the reassuring texts. Isn't it great when things ...just ... work? Even if it is probably only temporarily.



9 comments:

  1. Isn't technology wonderful ... when it works. (I've spent half the morning trying to email an attachment, and all I get is a message saying it won't send, with no clue why. My only solutionn, try and try and ... give up and drink coffee).

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  2. Funny things could even happen with a laptop. Last Thursday I was trying to load Milady's desired film from my Laptop to the xxx-card. Found the file emptied the card. Was on the click when Mr Cat arrived. Rubbing himself against my shins. As Mr Cat is still a lot more important than a f..ing file. I looked down to check what he may want. Turned out nothing, just a friendly gesture from his side. Looked again at the screen. File GONE. Impossible find that f..ing file. Not in the trash, Windoofs search finds nothing on the hard disk. Just vanished into Nirvana. And no I'm not old. Mr Cat is, I guess, still laughing somewhere

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    1. Laptops ..don't get me started: cat related incident: day of the Facebook Launch Party of Diamonds, laptop went down. Cancelled party. Lter, noticed Bluetooth thingy light was off ~ cat had walked over keyboard and switched it off...*rolls eyes*

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  3. Phones: don't get me started. Laptops: don't get me started. Ageing desktop: don't get me started. So, I never start, just watch repeats of Homes Under the Hammer in my pyjamas....

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  4. I managed to somehow call myself, answer my own phone and become the third person in a call my husband was having with gif gaf in the other room. Don't ask how or what because an answer won't come ... I know cos I tried. *gulp*.

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    1. Person after my own heart! I also managed to block myself off my own Facebook page! That was fun.

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  5. I've just read this out to my currently-being-pampered partner and he's told me to stop because it hurts; he's laughing so much. I love reading your posts aloud, CarolStar. They are just made for it! Terrific! And by the way, I don't know about your phone being low complexity. In our house it's me...I can't even unscrew a bleach bottle without a book of words!

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    1. aww..thanks Val..and don't get me started on those 'child-proof' bottle tops! I have smashed bottles with hammers before now to get at the contents

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  6. I thought the 'senior citizens texting code list' was the funniest thing I'd read until I read your post underneath it!

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