The cellular telephone really is the cherry on the top of the Coogee Bay Hotel gelato of capitalism. First of all they invent a little box that humanians have prospered without for several thousand years. Then they sell it to plumbers. Then they sell it to men in double-breasted Zegnas. Then they sell it to twelve-year-olds, and next thing you know it's a non-negotiable accoutrement of modern life. As if all this weren't bad enough, after two years the battery wears out. You take your box to the Telstra Shop at Northlandia and "Oh dear me," says the salesdude, "that's a really old model. We don't make batteries for that anymore." It's TWO BLINKING YEARS OLD, you say. THAT'S THE GESTATION PERIOD FOR AN ELEPHANT. You pop over to the electronics shop on the other side of Myer-den-of-iniquity to check whether Telstradude is just trying to make you buy a new phone, and DickSmithdude confirms, oh my word no, ha ha, oh no, you're not going to find a new battery for that old thing.
Grr, I say. Grr. I have a brand new mobile telephone, and the old one was JUST FINE. As phones go. Give or take the odd functioning battery.
The good news is:
Aw.
And just in case you missed the fact that Harriet is cuddling Beatrice's rear leg:
Double aw.
Aw.
Double aw.
15 comments:
You need http://www.twitkitteh.com/
eBay is your friend when it comes to buying batteries for your mobile phone that have been made obsolete by retail chains. Lots of OEM, generic batteries for sale on there, and for cheap, too.
I was supposed to make a comment buy got sidetracked by the 'aw' factor.
I can still get a battery for the handheld phone but it's so old (phone) that the signal interfers with everything else. So the whole lot, answer machine and all, has to go. It is 15 years old, practically a dinosaur but the new one I have my eye on is only a tad more in price than a replacement battery.
TRIPLE AW
The kittens! The leg! The cushions!
Bummer about the phone, agree about ebay.
I saw that heading in the feed reader and thought "there better be kittens!"
And, aw, there were kittens! Yay kittens!
Tomorrow is Cuddly Kitten Day, I shyte you not.
So you're pretty well set for March 23.... :P
and, yes, awwwwwwwwwww, they be cute.
Lexi! how jew spoze i'm to get any work done 'round here? I ask you! xxx e
At least it lasts longer than cream if you buy it and decide it doesn't work with the dinner you planned out.
Have had some of those moments too.
My mobile phone had better last a bit. I bought it on purpose when the model species was dying out just to get a big discount only of course I will have the "oh sorry we don't have any batteries" problem. That probably happened about two days after I purchased my phone.
You can always become one of those people who doesn't have a mobile phone. It is slightly more socially acceptable if you are also over eighty years old and offer carbon paper to people when you want a "copy of a document" and regard anything electrical, digital or nuclear etc suspiciously as "new-fangled".
Ja, das stimmt - I got really pooed off when I found I had to replace the Terry the Telephone (an old Nokia of six summers) because it wouldnt work in the US or Japan.
Terry was an indestructible old coot. He didnbt take piccies or any of that fancy stuff, but he knew how to get people talkin. Plus my daughter could throw him at walls and he bounced back laughing.
Poor old Tel. I wonder where old phones go?
Telephone heaven, a wonderful place where they sit in the pockets of people, wait until those people became relaxed, and then ring ring ring at the top of their voices, and stop ringing just as the people pick them up.
Telephone heaven is also known as human hell.
Hey Maria, I don't have a mobile phone! Though Twitter makes me slightly want one so I can tell the world when I am on a bus, and read about when Stephen Fry is on one.
You are quite right about the social ineptitude and general lameness that goes along with being mobileless, but I console myself with the thought that at least I will not get brain cancer.
ps - AWWW
(word verification = clingi)
Lucy, you smart but socially inept thing you, you may also be $20, $30, $40, or $60 more well-off each month depending on which plan you haven't chosen for yourself, and may have saved yourself several hundred dollars when you consider you don't have to replace that mobile those pickpockets can't steal from you.
Well done you.
What are you going to do with your riches?
P.S. were those kitten pix taken with a mobile phone camera, Baron Alexis?
P.P.S. The annoying thing about mobile phones is tat I had always thought of one as being great for "if I have an emergency". Perhaps I'm late and I need to get picked up from the station. Maybe I'm held hostage by a madman who has managed to tie up all parts of my body except my arm so I can reach for my mobile, the only possession of mine he has not thought to confiscate, because let's remember he's mad. What if I'm at the supermarket and icecream goes on special but I need to check with Mum first to ask exactly how many 1L tubs we can accommodate in our freezer to fully take advantage of this great deal?
(I did meet a guy in hospital who had a fractured back and was in a brace and wheel chair who told me he had hurt himself critically in the country, was blleding and lying on the ground but managed to crawl and reach for his mobile and call for help and a helicopter came and airlifted him to a hospital. Had they been an hour, maybe even a half hour later he probably wouldn't have survived.)
The trouble is that mobiles generally don't become used for this. Even if you aren't the type of person who sits about doing long gosip sessions on your mobile with a "like he says .. and then I did ... and right she says ... then he did .. and you won't believe but she said ..." rundown with their best friend each day (I hear these constantly on my morning public transport sessions) ...
well, mobiles seem to get inundated wth lots of useless crap.
Yes, there are your usual standard meet-ups/I'm running lates with friends or colleagues.
Then there are a whole swag of group SMSes from people whom you have a passing acquaintance with who just want to update you on their life and generally like to send a long illegible SMS early in the morning.
And pestering SMSes from work.
And then those calls from marketing companies who got hold of your number somehow and want to tell you something, somehow, that you really didn't care about.
And then those SMSes which are ads from your phone company advertising special deals that end up costing you more money.
And then there are people who clamour to "please borrow your phone, I lost mine and I just want to use it for an emergency" (don't mention the emergency is in the UK)
and ...
oh you get the picture.
Maria, I would like to remind you (or notify you, in case you didn't realise) that you are one of the main reasons I acquired Mobile Telephone No. 1. I seem to recall chastening remarks about my failure to be contactable on the sad occasion of our attempted meeting in the vicinity of the Broadway cinemas. I figured that if a friend of your longstanding and discernment was on the brink of severing relations, then things were getting dire indeed.
Oh, you should have asked The Guru — I could have directed you here. (NB. Haven’t actually used them.)
Hey, Linguistics Sprite, I need to invoke you. Can you email me? Address on banner at top of my webpage. Thanks muchly.
PS. This comment will have no PPS — couldn’t possibly compete with Maria!
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