A New Phone
You Always Need One - That's What They Tell You
Bombarded by texts and advertisements, their provider knew that they would succumb at some time and trade in their old handset for a bright new one. Everybody wants a new phone, don't they?
They didn't really but they thought if they upgraded then they would have a little peace.
They went to their provider's shop and they were told to take the new phone home, connect the phones with the enclosed cable and the data transfer would just work. Then do a factory reset on their old phone and bring it back to the shop and they would get a credit against their first new phone bill.
They got home and saw the first problem, the enclosed cable didn't fit their old phone. After rooting around a bit they found an adapter and connected the phones together. Then the second problem became apparent, the new phone was dead, and it needed charging.
It took an age to charge up and when it was ready the old phone was dead so that had to be charged too. The data transfer couldn't be done while charging because they used the same port to charge and transfer data,
Then it started transferring but was slow, and at many points, it asked for password and user verification. They could understand it once but this was ten times and it was hardly twelve per cent in.
They didn't know it but at every stop, the wait got longer, and the line to completion was still a long way from the end, but there was a notice saying
"don't unplug your phone"
So they kept on waiting and watching, they didn't sleep but they had to wait for the instructions from the phone.
Then it did a stop and a restart, and the progress line went back down to five per cent.
This was never-ending, They had no drink in so it was a nip to the tap a drink of what my uncle called "corporation pop".
They did,'t see what was happening outside, all that mattered was transferring their data and apps to the new phone. There were some noises in the hallway, things coming through the letterbox and sometimes there were knocks on the door, but they were mesmerised by the progress line.
And it kept going on like that almost endlessly, until ....
Finally
Everything was transferred to the new phone, it was time to see what this baby could do. They almost felt excited after all the grief they had been through setting the damned thing up.
They swiped their code to get into the new device and there was a new email:
"Time to upgrade to a new phone!!"
They looked at the date on the phone, the year was 2025, and it should have been 2024.
They checked the computer ...... 2025.
They turned on the TV ... 2025.
They went into the hallway piled high with newspapers and mail that had come through the letterbox. Picking up the newspaper they confirmed it was 2025.
They had spent twelve months moving data from their old phone to the new one.
Seriously... how the hell did that happen?
Still, the new phone was working which was the main thing, so they decided they would leave the next upgrade for a while.
Addendum:
This was inspired by the trauma of my friend John Scott moving to his latest new phone, which you can read about here if you are on Facebook.
The music is Peter Gabriel's "And Through The Wire" because that is still the normal way to transfer data to the new phone.
Keep reading
More stories from Mike Singleton - Mikeydred and writers in Fiction and other communities.
Six Feet Under
Buried alive. What a horrible way to go. Yazz lay there, in her own thoughts. What else could she do? She was hungry, thirsty, tired, mentally, and physically exhausted, and more than anything, she was bored. She hoped she would die of boredom before anything else, anything else would've been more painful. Like many people had, she and her friends had talked about what they reckon the worst ways to die were, it was a morbid subject, but it came up every now and again. Yazz had always been one to argue her point on drowning, others had mentioned burning alive, slowly and painfully bleeding to death, hung drawn and quartered, and being starved to death. It was strange that none of them had considered being buried alive, it had never come up. But now, she was thinking back to those conversations her and her friends had had, how could they have not thought about it? It took a lot longer than the others, you were completely confined, you couldn't move or do anything, you just had to wait, until your body was physically unable to support a life system anymore, which could take up to four days. Four! By far the longest out of all of them. She recounted some of these conversations just to try and pass the time, anything to pass the time. It was difficult to know how much time had passed since she had been underground, it was difficult to know anything. There were many things that Yazz didn't know, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know how she'd got into the coffin, she'd just woken up there. Yazz also didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was, she guessed at Tuesday, it was Sunday evening when she'd been buried alive, intentionally, and although it had felt like weeks had passed, she was still alive, which means she hadn't died from dehydration, and therefore it couldn't have been more than four days.
By Liam Storm3 days ago in Fiction
Book Review Percy Jackson and the lightning thief
Impact-Site-Verification: 08b0e63e-8b95-4c4d-a8c0-8ef4609c67be Percy Jackson and the lightning thief is one the most original, creative and captivating books that blends Greek Mythology with the Modern Day. In this book the main character Percy Jackson finds out about his true demigod identity and the fact that his father was Posiedon God of the Sea and this changes his perception of the world .This book has a thrilling adventure where Percy Jackson tries to retrieve Zeus's stollen lightning bolt which is his symbol of power.
By Dash Deepakabout 4 hours ago in Fiction
Vocal Bonus Leaderboard: 05/01/2024
Welcome to the weekly update of the Leaderboard! We're thrilled to showcase Vocal's most discussed stories, popular picks, and rising stars. Let's dive into this past week's standout contributors and their remarkable achievements.
By Vocal Team8 days ago in Resources
Comments (4)
And it doesn't keep those promotions from coming through, even though it's still another two years before I'm actually eligible for an upgrade. I've had this kind of experience with computers taking literally an entire week to accomplish something only to have it not work.
Omgggg, they spent a year transferring the data! That's crazyyyyyy! Loved your story!
I laughed my ass off reading this Mike. I have a friend who used to work at a cell store and he had some good stories like this. On a side note, I agree with the serious part of this post too.
I will see if I can write a poem instead