Well, I’ll Be Buggered

Ok, not funny. Not funny at all.

Well, some people might think it’s funny. And I did laugh with my sister about it……..eventually.

But really not funny.

I was doing a post the other day about internet privacy and security and such. Maybe you read it. Maybe you didn’t. If not, why not? Only kiddin’.

This is kinda related, I suppose, in a weird and wonderfully humiliating way.

I was feeling a bit chilled. You know the weather’s changing and my old bones must have been feeling it. Thought to myself, I know, I’ll have a bath. A nice big, deep, bubbly bath. Hot. Really hot and I’ll relax. Thing is, I hate baths. They’re boring. You can’t do anything. I’ve dropped books in the bath before so I don’t do that any more. Lie back and think? Well, I can do that anywhere and in better comfort. Nah, baths are just boring. Prefer showers, myself. Or not by myself. Whole other story.

Anyway, I ran my bath, got some bits and pieces together. You know, a wee glass of red wine and my cigs. Then I had a great idea. I’ll take my phone. I’ll answer any comments on it from blogland. That’s a good idea, I thought to myself. Huggh! Not.

Well, my phone is a piece of shit Blackberry that does what it likes and changes words for me when I want to say something else. So for some reason best known to itself when I type *you’re* it decides *you’reyou’re*. I don’t know why. I know it’s predictive and I can probably change the settings but sometimes it suits me to have it on.

Anyway, it’s a piece of shit.

I hate it.

Now I hate it even more.

I have removed the battery and the sim card because my phone has been taken over by some evil phone thing that is unknown to me and I can’t live with that.

Back to the point.

Yeah, so immersed in a deep, hot bubble bath, I’m thinking this might be ok. Relax back, sip some wine, smoke one. I know. I’ve tried. Leave it.

So, I heard a little ping on my phone which had been conveniently placed on a little table next to the bath. Oh, you’ve got mail, I thought. And lifted it. With soaking wet hands.

Now I don’t know if that is when all the trouble started but it became quite unresponsive. I was pressing one button to see mail. And it was like, ‘no use me, compose a text’. ‘But I don’t want to text. I want to email.’ ‘Well how about camera then? Choose me.’ ‘No thanks. I want to email.’ Pressing buttons furiously on this piece of junk.

Anyway, it did what it wanted to do and I gave up. Put it back down. Finished my ablutions and that was that. I thought.

It started playing up and not doing as it was told. I was getting really pissed with it by this time. Told it that it was being replaced and that no one else would want it. I know. A bit heartless but it was how I was feeling. So frustrating. I must have had the back cover off it half a dozen times to restart it ‘cos I couldn’t get it to do anything. Then it happened.

I was still fuming about the crappy phone but gave up trying to fix it. Blogland would help calm my frustrations. I went to my homepage. And there, on my Twitter feed, was a picture of my leg in the bath! No f****** kiddin’. My leg. Surrounded with bubbles. I went all shades of pink and purple and started stammering aloud to myself, WTF, WTF, WTF. Get the picture?

I deleted it. Then I had a horrible thought. What if…no, God, please, no….I raced over to my Twitter account. And, God almighty, I nearly passed out. There was my leg. I had twooted my own leg to Twitter. Well, not me, that bastard phone of mine. So, I deleted it. Done. I thought.

Tried to make a phone call and answer a few texts. Nope, nothing doing. Ping, beep. And I could do nothing with it. Back off again. Removed the battery. Back on. It made all sorts of promises to me. And, like the naïve fool that I am, I believed it. It’s a liar though. I know that now. The back light went off again and I pressed more buttons furiously. Nothing was happening. Not that I could see. ‘Cos the backlight wouldn’t come on.

It wasn’t until my sister pinged me on Facebook to ask was everything ok, that I knew it wasn’t. Apparently, she had received a picture of my leg six times. Six times. She was obviously worried about my mental health by this time. Or, as she put it, ‘I thought maybe you’d got your toe stuck in the tap and needed the fire brigade. I was going to come round for a laugh. And to check out the fire fighters.’ Divorcee. You know.

So we had a bit of a laugh about it on private chat on Facebook. ‘Cos, of course, I couldn’t text her. Because, even as I write this, my phone is sitting beside me in several pieces. Its lifeline has been cut off. Battery out and staying out.

So we giggled and snorted some and she made all kinds of crass remarks about stuff I’m not repeating here. But it was funny. She made a few comments about how much worse it could have been. I was in the bath, after all. Good Lord, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Then, after I had finished chatting to her and wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes, a horrible thought occurred.

My sis is always going to be there for me and question anything and everything. But….

What if, in pressing buttons on a screen I couldn’t see, this image has been sent to everybody in my phone book! My school work mates, my head teacher, my doctor, my ……it just goes on!

What if, it wasn’t just that picture that went? What if some of my other stuff went? Secret stuff, like…Well, I’m not telling you.

But, if you see a post entitled, ‘Coming Out Of The Closet Mark IV’, you’ll know I’ve been outed! I may become a full-time blogger with no job prospects because I send random drivel and possibly a few erotic poems and story ideas to all and sundry….six times.

So, I’m in the market for a new phone. I am never in my life taking any phone into a bath with me again. I tell my own kids this all the time. Do they listen? Yes, as it happens. Do I? Well, what do you think?

My laptop’s not been feeling too well either. Not going there. Not going there at all, at all.

Advertisement