I’m pretty sure someone just phoned me by accident.
My mobile is plugged into the wall, and cannot be moved more than a metre from where it sits, thus negating its entire purpose. This, combined with the fact that the electronic noises that emanate from it drive my eyeballs insane, and I have to have them all switched off, means that I was unaware that it rang.
It just sat there, flashing gently like an overly polite pelican crossing, mumbling something to me about there being a missed call and a voicemail message. Without wishing to anthropomorphise a piece of circuitry, this is exactly what I would be like were I a Nokia 5800 whose owner was a dribbling twat. And all my well-mannered understatement would be for nothing when I was finally noticed and the owner cursed me for not doing my job.
Yup, I’d hate to be my mobile phone, not least because I’d have to sit alone in dusty pockets and dangle far too close to my own balls.
Having tutted passive-aggressively at my Finnish ear block, I then tugged out the charger and it decided enough was enough and retorted with an equally passive-aggressive heckle.
“Now unplug the charger from the wall. It wastes electricity,” it huffed snootily.
Before long my kettle will be scoffing, “there’s too much water inside me you cock munch,” and lights will just turn themselves off whenever they want, leaving me to type in the dark, lit only from a monitor that is moaning about how I don’t look at it enough. “You’re more interested in that keyboard than me,” it will pout, then slip into a sulky hibernation.
So anyway, I called my voicemail, and Julia Sawalha* reminded me how to navigate my way around, but tonight I detected a slight air of annoyance in her voice, irked that she had to tell me all this AGAIN.
Finally, having traversed the disapproving tone of all my technology, I heard the message, and I suspect the person had meant to phone someone else instead.
I don’t mind real people dismissing me, but I’m starting to resent that my phone, who I pay 30 odd quid a month to keep me company, is now starting to despise my existence. Maybe it doesn’t like me checking Twitter when I’m in the toilet.
*After some research, it turns out it’s Ruth Gibson, not Saffy.
