Ho, ho, ho
Ho, ho, ho. I 'm practising for my Santa rounds. Excitement has reached fever pitch in our house. Daughter three is decorating her stocking with sequins. Daughter two is creating some artwork out of the recycling bin liners. The baby has been making brownies [when I say making, I mean putting his head in the bowl and emerging even sweeter than he already was]. Daughter one is glued to her Blackberry [a joint present for Christmas and birthday for the next 10 years]. Apparently, all post-primary schoolchildren now have one and she has been living in purdah for the last few months, cut off from a communications lifeline by her heartless parents.
My partner, who likes to think of himself as a mobile phone expert and spends long periods of time studying all the catalogues longingly, decided on this occasion to let me buy the phone. This was not entirely wise. I went into the shop armed with advice about which phone to buy, to get it on pay as you go, not to get a sim card and other highly technological information. I was with daughters two and three at the time. I present this as mitigating evidence. I was also carrying everyone's coats. The shop assistant asked me various questions which might as well have been in double Dutch. I asked her to repeat them slowly, very slowly. She looked at me witheringly.
I emerged some time later with a phone, a case and a sim card [I was told the phone company had a good deal of six months free BBM, which I now know is some sort of messaging system and not something to do with big bottoms]. All I had to do, said the assistant, was to ring 150 and set up the free messaging. It sounded easy peasy.
However...that was before I had actually dialled 150. Basically you are sent into an endless loop of voice messages. "For bills press 1, for technical support press 2..." None of them mentioned Blackberries or BBM. I hazarded a guess at what the correct menu function might be. Every single one I pressed sent me into another menu and every option ended up with "For full information, contact our website." There was no information of any use on their website. I tried to second guess which number on the menu function might actually result in speaking to an actual real life human being. It appeared none of them did. I rang my nearest mobile phone store and wailed at them about their voicemail system. They told me to text a message to a number. I did. It bounced back. I rang the store again. They didn't pick up [they probably knew that barmy wailing woman was likely to ring back]. I rang another store, and another. By this point I was close to throwing myself out of the window. The children all expressed sympathy, although daughter two said she would be charging for any swear words.
Eventually through an internet search I found a number which connected me to "Jim". He told me the store I bought the phone in should have set it up. Within seconds we were firing on all cylinders. Daughter one has been messaging solidly since Wednesday and suspiciously hides the phone whenever I enter the room. Forget the riots, BBM allows children to completely out-technify their parents at every move. I had to retire for a lie-down, although I felt like throwing some sort of victory party. I had triumphed over the system.
I have since checked all the Christmas presents. There is nothing at all technological in there. Phew.
Happy Christmas.
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