Getting a phone for Herself has been a nightmare.

I mentioned in passing my previous trials and tribulations with Three and their fucking hopeless website. That eventually was sorted. The three dud orders were cancelled and the money was refunded. Then Herself got her release and we decided she didn’t need a phone anyway.

Then of course last Thursday came along and we were smacked bang into an urgent need for a phone again.

Thursday afternoon was fairly hectic and it wasn’t until evening that I got to thinking about phones again. I assumed that a major company like Three would have fixed its fucking site especially as they had been relying on the Interwebs for their business.

They hadn’t.

I very carefully placed an order on-line taking notes at every step [just in case]. When it came to paying I discovered I had lost my credit card. That didn’t exactly improve my mood. So I paid using Mastercard. The fucking cunting shitting site failed again! At this point it was well after closing time everywhere so there was no point in a) phoning around the shops to see if they had found my credit card or b) trying to contact Three.

I was not my usual cheerful self by bedtime.

I set the alarm for the crack of dawn so I could start phoning about my credit card. The alarm didn’t wake me as I had a rotten night and was awake anyway. Getting dressed I discovered my credit card which was in a different pocket from the usual. That was a relief. But I still had the phone fiasco hanging over me.

I decided to take another tack. It was time for the direct approach and go the old fashioned way. I drove into Scobieville where Three have a shop. I got to the shop and found the door was locked. There were people inside so I just guessed that if I stood there looking miserable enough they would let me in. There was a gale blowing at the time and Scobieville has a depressing Main Street anyway so a combination of gale and grey street had me standing leaning into the wind and my hair a beard flapping around my miserable face. I hoped I looked pathetic.

They eventually let a customer out and let me in. They locked the door behind me to the disgust of the people who had started to collect behind me in the street.

The bloke was very nice and reasonable. For the craic I told him my website woes. He rolled his eyes and said something extremely uncomplimentary about the site that I couldn’t possibly repeat here in public. I gather I wasn’t the only one having problems. He checked my order and found it. He said it was in Limbo and I had better contact the office. He gave me the number to call which I didn’t even bother noting as their phone system is impossible.

Seeing as I was there, I decided to buy a phone.

So I had the phone I had been looking for all along [a Nokia 2720] and went home.

I knew from bitter experience that phoning Three is impossible. It has endless menus, horrendous wait times and unhelpful staff when they finally answer. The website did offer a Chat facility that told me it would answer my query promptly. It transpired that it was manned by a robot [seriously!] that gave me a choice of four completely irrelevant questions. If I typed anything it didn’t like it just replied that it didn’t understand and sent me back to the four questions. It didn’t even understand “go fuck yourself, you cunt” which I imagine a lot of people type.

I eventually found an obscure page right in the bowels of the site which seemed to offer a different type of chat. I typed “Hello there” and to my delight and actual living breathing member of the species Homo Sapiens replied. So I lashed in all the details I knew he would require – my name, address, email, pone number, date of birth and how many pills I had taken that morning. I also told him the order number and what I thought of their fucking website. He replied saying that yes, he could see the order but that it was stuck in some fashion. He also said he agreed about the site but that “they were working on it”. I told him to cancel the order and asked for a refund. He said that was no problem.

Shorty after, I received an email informing me that the order had been cancelled and the refund was being processed. Oh joy!

I dropped into the hospital yesterday afternoon with a case full of clothing for Herself. I tucked the new phone in too with some instructions I had written on how to use it. She phoned a while later to say she had found it [obviously as her new number was on my screen]. She loves it!

Now she has started phoning me every ten minutes starting in the early hours of the morning and giving out about the hospital, the staff, the food and anything else she can think of.

I’m beginning to wonder if the phone was a good idea.