The first half of this week has been characterised by appallingly bad hayfever, my normally wonderful Flixonase wasn’t working. At first I thought I was actually sick, thought “Uh oh, swine flu?”, then realised it was actually hayfever, I display a unique set of characteristics when I’m in the midst of a bad hayfever attack, that I don’t have if I have a bad cold, I get utterly ravenous and for some strange reason, really, really hate my hair, it always feels like I’ve got a great big matted sheep’s pelt on my head. Tuesday was so bad I had trouble keeping my eyes open, they were streaming so badly, I ended up spending most of the afternoon with my eyes shut and a wet kitchen towel over my face and consequently I broke my cardinal rule, twice, falling asleep when in sole charge of the kids. Luckily the first time when it was just me and Boy Lacer, he was sitting next to be on the sofa and when he’s in that position he doesn’t move (favourite position) and the Balamory theme tune woke me, ugh if I’d slept through pick up. The second time Girl Lacer was here and luckily wasn’t too long.
Today the hayfever hasn’t been too bad, I’m developing a nice asthma cough now instead, even so the shop assistant in the supermarket still looked at me suspiciously, made me vow to continue to take my hayfever medication into the winter this year, what with swine flu. I still get hayfever attacks in the winter, thanks to a mould allergy, but not frequently enough to keep taking my flixonase continuously (and I hate the idea of taking the medication for that long, even though my GP has recommended it). But I can imagine me now, me, mid-winter, in the middle of a swine flu outbreak, sneezing my head off, looking awful, trying to go to the supermarket, I would be lynched by lots of people with scarves over their mouths.
In between all the sneezing we’ve had pushchair trauma, as I mentioned before, the spare buggy, the one that actually fits in the car, has lost its wheel and we can’t buy a direct replacement because Boy Lacer is now way too big, so we need a special needs pushchair, so we checked out the prices and went “Oh my god, we have never paid that much for a pushchair in our lives!”. So we bid and lost on one on ebay. I tried to ring occupational therapy to discuss pushchair options, only to discover the occupational therapist has left (so that’s why we haven’t seen her for an eternity) and that according to the receptionist they’ve only just hired ‘some girls’. So spotted another pushchair on ebay and have been bidding on that. Meanwhile we still have a pushchair, it’s just it doesn’t fit in the car, I get the kids ready for the school run today, push Boy Lacer out of the front garden, bump, bump, bump, the wheel has fallen off our now one and only remaining pushchair. Luckily a friend has loaned us a very elderly Maclaren, which Boy Lacer barely fits into and we are now bidding ridiculous amounts of money on that pushchair on ebay.
So amidst all this, today was the day, that I’d been told a few weeks ago, that I could cancel my mobile phone, as I want to cancel my phone on the dot of the end of my 18 month contract. So, I ring through to the appropriate option on my mobile phone providers phone network, tell them I want to cancel my phone, guy on the other end of the phone asks politely why and that’s where I made my mistake, I told him I was going to get an iphone. The guy then launches into this lengthy spiel about why iphones are evil (these call centre guys probably have lectures on the very subject, probably right at the top of their list on why iphones are evil is that the mobile provider in question doesn’t have the contract to sell them, I bet if they did they’d be saying they were wonderful). Call centre guy then tries to sell me all these equivalent phones that do x,y and z and I keep on saying politely “no thank you, I want to cancel my phone”, his pitch gets more and more aggressive, basically subtly and then not so subtly implying I’m an idiot for going for an iphone. So I have to respond more stridently, going “Look, I’m not interested, I’m getting an iphone, now please cancel my phone!”, to which the guy goes “I’m not cancelling your phone until you give me a logical reason why you want an iphone”, I was literally gobsmacked and so speechless I just put the phone down on him and then rang straight back, this time deliberately not going through to the ‘I’m thinking of cancelling my contract’ option because that was obviously manned by complete and utter nutters. I go to the ‘anything else’ option and as soon as the poor (different) call centre guy picks up the phone, I launch into a massive tirade, telling the guy what the other call centre guy had just said and that “quite frankly you could try and sell me a phone that goes into my kitchen and does my dishes, I am not interested, what phone I get is my business, not yours, now cancel my phone’, phone duly cancelled by very apologetic call centre guy. Honestly, I may or may not stay with O2 (the UK iphone provider, whom I’m moving to) forever, as in the future there may be another phone out there that after my iphone contract is up in 2 years I want instead, but I tell you something, I will never ever go back to my current phone provider, no way. Oh and for the record ‘the logical reason why I’m switching to an iphone’ is that out of all the smart phones on the market, they have the most apps and that is what I’m paying for.
