The Joys of Phone Ownership

 A week or two back it was our wedding anniversary and Mike's birthday. So we decided to go out 'en famile' and have a meal out at a local pub.
    Mike and Cherise picked the Fox and Coney at South Cave, which was a good place for a decent meal before lockdown. We, me and Graham, haven't been out for a meal since before lockdown, so this was to be our first meal out for over two years, so, to be honest, we weren't sure what the protocol would be.

    Anyway, to cut a long story short: we couldn't find out how to get into the pub carpark, and, not having a mobile phone, had no way to tell Mike and Cherise that we were in the village, but couldn't get to them.

    After hanging about for over half an hour, in the hopes that we would see them either arriving, or Mike would pop out of the pub and see us parked up the road, we gave up and went home. We rang Mike as soon as we got in and told him what was what, and he told us when he visited next that they had had a very nice meal.

    

    Graham and I had a free and frank discussion and decided that it probably was about time we gave in and bought a mobile phone, for such emergencies and if the car broke down etc. Also as our digital camera had also recently given up the ghost (which is why I have been unable to show you my Mandala crochet projects), the phone would also act as a camera too.

    So Mike came last Sunday and between him and me and various bits of bank paperwork, we ordered a mobile phone which we were told would arrive the next day. At the same time Mike ordered a nice case for me to keep the phone safe.

    The next day the phone case arrived, but no sign of the phone.

    At around five pm I had a phone call, supposedly from the company who were supposed to be supplying the phone, who told me, 'Sorry, you can't have the deal, or the phone you signed up for, but we can offer you a worse one at £10 more.' - 'Oh and can you give me your credit card details now....'

    I replied that: I was unhappy about the new deal, and uncomfortable with giving out my card details to someone I did not know.

    I rang Mike to let him know the state of play, and as I was telling him he said 'F**k that! I'll come round tomorrow and we'll have another go, with a different company!'

    Anyway suffice it to say that today Mike and me have spent the morning in Curry's, with a very nice and helpful young man who has sorted me out with basically the same phone and a cheaper deal than I was being offered on Sunday.

    It would seem that the problem was my credit history. I have bought most things over the last 30 odd years through the business, or with cash and I suspect if I had bought this phone through the business account there would have been no difficulty. But I decided that we should buy it using our personal account, which we are only just starting to use, as it now has a regular income of Grahams pension.

    So, tomorrow Mike will be back to try and teach this old dog the new tricks of using a mobile phone - I suspect I will have to take copious notes!