Mummy Spits the Dummy

So, I’ve had some problems with my telecommunications at MSTD headquarters this week. In case you weren’t aware, most of my posts are written one-handed on my smartphone while I breastfeed Baby Girl to sleep. (Cue gasps of admiration at my fantastic efficiency and ability to multi-task! Nah, not really, it’s just the only time of day when I don’t have one or both children yammering at me, so I use it well). Dropping my phone on a hard surface several weeks back and smashing the screen up wasn’t an ideal course of action.

The phone was useable, but hard to read and I kept getting little shards of glass in my swiping finger. I took it to the Service Provider Of Supreme Indifference, and after a not-insignificant wait a faux-friendly hipster gave me the good news that my phone could be replaced! With, y’know, a brand new one! That very day! Because I’d, like, been paying $10 a month for an insurance service I thought I’d opted out of! And best of all, I’d only have to pay $180!

Wait…

I didn’t want to pay $180. Especially since I’d apparently already been paying a monthly fee, which I was told I couldn’t cancel in-store, so I’d need to ring the phone company ‘at a time convenient to me’ (hint: NO time is convenient for a phone call when you are a mother of small children. If there is a convenient time for a phone call, I’ll be making a long-overdue call to one of my neglected girlfriends, not ringing some stupid phone company). I stomped out of there and went to the Phone Repair Shop of Dashed Hopes, where they happily offered to fix my screen. For $250.

Curses…

Enter my magnificent Dad, computer programmer and geek extraordinaire, who did a little research and discovered that we could buy a screen replacement kit online for $25, and he could fix my phone for me in the comfort of my own home. Joy! Does it look easy? I asked him. Yeah, piece of cake, he replied. Unfortunately, irony is poorly communicated via text message, and I took him seriously. It wasn’t until the evening of the repair job, when I saw the intensity with which he was laying out a work area and studying the tutorial video that I began to realise we’d taken on a bigger challenge than I first suspected.

Dad spent a good four or five hours slowly heating, prying, and scraping bits of broken glass and adhesive off my phone before reassembling it with a spanking new screen. It looked great and worked a treat, except for the bottom two centimetres, which was completely dead. Investigation revealed that despite his painstakingly careful approach, he’d nicked a cable during the scraping-off-broken-glass process. Bummer. We were going to have to take it to the repair shop after all, or smash it up again, deny everything and take it to the SPOSI for a $180 replacement.

So, no phone at all now. I suddenly realise how bereft I am. We don’t have a home phone. I don’t use our camera. I don’t have anyone’s phone number written down. I don’t know any of my passwords for anything. It’s all on my phone. Which I can’t unlock because some of my unlocking code uses the bottom quarter of the touchscreen.

Dad: Not to worry. We’ll just transfer all the data from your SD card for now. Wait. Where’s the SD card?

Me: Um. I don’t think I have one? *Lightbulb* Is that why my phone keeps telling me it’s out of memory all the time and I can’t install any new apps? I should get one, shouldn’t I?

Dad: Er. Yes. You should. Anyway, your photos are all backed up on the computer and your external hard drive, right? So it’s no biggie if they get deleted locally during the repair.

Me: Yyyy-no. No, they’re not. I never remember to do that stuff. I should do that, shouldn’t I?

Dad: Once again, yes. I’m sure we’ve talked about this before. Well, at least your contacts will be synced and stored on your Google account.

Me: Really?! That’s a thing? I didn’t know you could do that! Wow, I manually copied them over from my old phone one at a time when I got this one. That would have been really handy to know! So, I guess that’s a no. I don’t have any phone numbers.

Dad: *Shaking head* Oh dear. I really have failed, haven’t I?

Me: No, no, no! You were only trying to help me. My stuff wouldn’t be lost if I’d stored it properly. I definitely share culpability here.

Dad: *Awkward silence*

Me: Ohh. Right. You mean you’ve failed in my upbringing. Now I’m with you. Sorry about that.

So, you’ll be seeing a little less of me for the next week or so, since I’m now (even more) technologically crippled and don’t have access to the WordPress app or any of my photos from the last year (guess what I’ll be backing up as soon as my phone is back from the repair shop?). Apologies for not posting or commenting at my usual rate – my interim phone requires two thumbs for typing, and I’ll probably drop the baby if I try that.

 

************** UPDATE********************

In a slightly farcical turn of events, which would be surprising if we were discussing anyone’s life other than my own, my computer has now also died. I think it may have taken unkindly to my grousing about having to type with two hands (I mean, come on! What is this, the middle ages?), and given up the ghost just to spite me.

This update has been brought to you by a small flock of carrier pigeons, who are probably already plotting to escape, ensuring their flight path takes them directly over my clothesline so they can relieve themselves on their way out.