I have lost my phone and while waiting for a replacement to be sent out I went to the shop and bought what drug dealers refer to as a “burner” – that is a Pay As You Go phone with an untraceable SIM card. I like to think of myself as the kind of sanguine creative who can live without a mobile phone, but it turns out that if you live in a world in which absolutely everyone else has a mobile phone, not having one is a problem.
No make-up selfie here because my eyes are too itchy (why? IT IS NO LONGER SUMMER THERE IS NO POLLEN) to apply eyeliner. Hair: Bumble & Bumble. Nail varnish: “Jasper” by Mavala. Sweater: J Crew (last year) Earrings: Dinny Hall
I make it all sound so simple. Of course I was on the phone for 40 mins to Vodafone trying to sort out a replacement phone and the “burner” that I bought from the shop declared that its “SIM registration has failed”.
I immediately assumed that I’d been sold a dud phone because that’s the kind of shitty, shitty luck I have because I am cursed and everyone hates me. I tried to call the shop in Camden, but you’re not allowed to call the shop, you see, because they mustn’t be bothered in their busy day of checking their hairdos and staring into space by actual customers who might have an actual problem. So I rang the number suggested on my phone receipt and it put me through to just the main “Press 1 for thingy” number at which point, I’m slightly ashamed to say, I flung my cordless landline phone hard onto the floor, giving my au pair of a bit of a shock.
To its huge credit, the phone didn’t even break (I mean, can you imagine what would happen to an iPhone if you did that? It would probably evaporate into 40,000 bits), the batteries just came out. So I put the batteries back in while someone at Vodafone “popped” me on a “quick hold” and took another 25 minutes to make the burner work.
So my burner finally works. For old time’s sake I got a Nokia. It is literally like being back in 1998 although this phone actually sends and receives text messages, my very first phone didn’t and you had to ring up specially and activate the text messaging feature. This phone does not even have predictive texting. I have set the ringtone to the very loud Nokia tune and the text messages go BEEP BEEP *pause* BEEP BEEP. I lived in constant fear of even gently tapping the side of my iPhone, lest it shatter and cost me a fortune in a new screen. But this Nokia? Fuck – you could run it over and then go back and forth a couple of times and it would emerge unscathed.
But, you know, it’s all come right back to me. And in a way it is a bit relaxing to have a phone that does nothing more complicated than text and telephone. It makes me think that I use things like Twitter and Instagram because they’re there and they work and so I feel I ought to.
Actually hang on, what am I saying? The Ocado app changed my life. As did the AddLee app. And don’t get me started on Peekaboo Barn and anything by DuckDuckMoose. When I get my new phone I just have to learn not to abuse those apps by e.g. doing a big Ocado order or hiding behind the curtain ordering things I will never wear classic investment pieces off Topshop when I am nominally supposed to be looking after the kids.
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