fudge

Wednesday 8 June 2011

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I’m getting very frustrated.  As you may know if you've read I'm not the alien, it's an effing android , I’ve recently tried to overcome my technophobia and use my so called ‘smart phone’!

Well, I have a problem, and no, nothing to do with fat fongerz this time.  It’s the bloody message I’ve had oh, I don’t know HOW many times in the last two weeks.  I do know that I’ve had it 12 times in the last 8 hours. The last time being at 4:23am this morning!

It’s a message from O2 helpfully telling me I’m out of credit and directing me to the top-up line.

 Funnily enough, I KNOW IM OUT OF CREDIT!  I know it because when I top up x amount each month I get unlimited texts and x amount of free call time minutes.  So, I put x amount on my phone, O2 takes said x amount and gives me my ‘freebies thus, technically I’m left with no credit but I’m happy.

I am NOT effing happy about being told that I’m out of credit almost every 30 minutes and I have told the nice virtual lady Lucy from the O2 customer services dept. that Id like these helpful messages stopped TWICE now and she’s assured me she has done it as we speak.

I do wonder how I managed before I had a mobile though.  I resisted for a good long while saying Id rather not be contactable every minute of the day, sometimes I LIKE being on my own.  Well, as the children get older and are off and about with their friends it became a bit of a necessity.

It also means that we never have to see or speak to each other.

Master Mac can spend his time on his Play Station in his room and text me ‘what’s for tea’. I can text back ‘nothing until you bring down all my crockery’.  I can text him to turn down his TV/music, whatever, he can text back, ‘can’t hear you, got my headphones on’. The only time I really need to venture into his bedroom is when I’ve lost my voice shouting up the stairs for him to get up in the morning and have to resort to jumping up and down on his bed battering him with a pillow.



Facebook, now that’s another great was to communicate with your children too.  Mine have access to it on the understanding that I am on their friends list.  They don’t like it much and I try (mostly successfully) not to comment on their wall but I’ve heard too much about cyber bullying to be happy about them not having at least a little censoring.

I had a message from Miss Mac the other day.  Now you have to bear in mind that Miss Mac was in the front room and I was in the dining room.  The two rooms have been knocked into to one with French doors between the two, she was literally TWO FEET from me.

“Mother (she said), would you be so kind as to bring me a glass of Cranberry and Raspberry juice, I have just coughed up something yuck and swallowed it again and now my throat BURNS!”

It's small but it's ours
We do talk, of COURSE we do.  Yesterday I enticed them into the garden with the promise of putting the pool up and then I locked the door thus ensuring that they had no option but to converse with me.

We sat there, me asking caring and intelligent questions about school, friends, hopes and dreams. Them grunting occasionally and nodding their heads and tapping their feet.

 It took me a little while to realise that they were both plugged into their mobile phones listening to music!

Well, we shared the same air space for a while and who knows, if it stops raining for long enough, maybe we will all get in the pool tonight. If we don’t talk then at least we might have some fun trying to drown each other.

13 comments:

diney said...

Funny! My 11 year old rang me from upstairs on Sunday after we had had words about revision (lack of) for tests and told me grumpily that she was in her room and never coming out again so would I bring her up a hot chocolate with marshmalllows. Technology to blame, or just hormones -probably both!

Sarah said...

Hard to tell really. Mine are 12 and 13 and I wonder the same thing. Should I just except that without technology it's possible that we wouldn't actually 'talk' at all?

postcard pam said...

My daughter is rather reserved and only ever tells me she loves me via facebook or text and doesn't complain when I do the same back. But in the flesh, I am not allowed to show her any affection at all, though I try desperately ! I do though, sneak in to her room whilst she's asleep and plant a juicy kiss on her and tell her I love her. Most of me hopes she's awake and listening.
PS. Thank You for the shout out! It came on a day when I really needed something nice to happen x

Sarah said...

You are more than welcome Pam, it was a very easy decision. Funnily enough Fancy passing it to me came on a day when I needed cheering up too and it really did the trick.

I have to do a similar thing with my son, my daughter is very affectionate but my son isn't given to displays of affection public or private. Sometimes I just want to squeeze him so hard and tell him I love him but he's nearly as tall as me now and can fight me off. x

Nel said...

She did ask very politely for a drink, I am impressed. Clearly a very good mannered texter. Good child rearing, well done you!!

Anonymous said...

Sarah - funnily enough my youngest are 12 and 13 as well..And yes we do tend to coverse via text and fb. I also have an older daughter who lives away from home in Leamington because she is at Warwick Uni - and we talk more by fb and text or email than we do on the phone.

I do find that when forced to share the same air space, my children have a reluctance to say anything other than "I'm bored!" or "I'm hungry!", so some days I am grateful for conversation by other means because it actually means that we have a conversation...lol

Lou x

Life In A Pink Fibro said...

LOL. The future is a beautiful, loving, warm place isn't it? I don't have a smart phone. I have an 8 year old Nokia. Hot pink. So daggy it's almost cool again. Almost.

Sarah said...

She did ask VERY politely Nel, and very formally, I was torn between being impressed and laughter.

Yet more similarities Lou, I have an older son who lives away from home. I'm lucky that he lives in the same town though so although much of our communication is via texting I do see him fairly regularly too. Usually when he's looking for bacon and egg sandwiches!

Oh, I loved my old phone with the buttons, we understood each other and it was almost indistructable. Ive already dropped this one and broken the screen :(. I'm thinking I may try and take the children away in the holidays to somewhere with no internet access or phone reception so we can play hide and seek and monopoly.

O2 said...

Hello Mrs Mac!

Sorry to hear you've been receiving low credit reminders at such an unearthly hour. The reminders are reactive, so they'll be sent whenever your phone tries to do something which you'd normally be charged for (even if they're free right now as part of a Bolt on). It sounds to us as though your flashy little touchscreen number is asking the network for information of its own accord - perhaps to check your email, or even update a weather app on your phone's home screen?

Anyway, if the lovely Lucy hasn't already managed to get these alerts stopped for you, the good news is that it can be sorted out with a quick call to Customer Service (numbers at http://j.mp/CallCS).

We've also got some helpful information about the different ways you can Top-up your number, including our new Auto Top-up service. That's here: http://bit.ly/fa4Hoq

Unfortunately, there's little we can do to help get Master Mac out of bed in the mornings. Or resolve problems with fongerz. Sorry about that.

Sarah said...

Hmm, I do not HAVE fat fongerz!!

Ok O2, third virtual message with virtual Marcus this time and so far ........... Haha, would you believe, as I type, oh yes!!!! ANOTHER message from you. Lets see, that makes 46 in the last three days, I'm out of credit??? NO SHIT! (btw, that was NOT a funny haha!)

Christy said...

Very good analysis of what's wrong these days. Sometimes I think there are too many gadgets for us to use and the kids know how to use them better than we do!

CinfulCinnamon said...

I had to recently kick my son off my friends list at Facebook. His language with his friends wasn't embarrassing me per se, but I didn't want MY friends to see what he was saying. We made up, but I have to wonder too. Sometimes it is better NOT knowing what's going on.

Anyway, I've wandered over from FYF to say hi. And I'm a new follower.

Sarah said...

Hard one isn't it? And the older they get, the harder it gets in that respect.

Thank you for following and I'll be over for a nosy in a bit..