It’s just going to put life on hold for an hour while you listen to a tinny rendition of Lorde’s Team on repeat. Sorry Lorde but I now loathe your song.
But phone them I did when I realised my stagnant inbox was
the result of my email account being shut down several days earlier.
Admittedly, it’s not as bad as the days with toddlers
hovering round your feet, upending things and pooing their pants but still, hungry,
bored kids are not ideal.
There’s always the option of putting the phone on speaker
and going about the daily tasks with one hand, which is what I do – it’s all
about multi-tasking after-all – but it’s rather hard peeling kumara with one
hand and, no sooner have I put the phone down, then Lorde’s song abruptly ends
and a man’s thick-foreign accent carries across the kitchen.
I drop what I am doing and lunge for the phone. I don’t know
why I do this when they’ve kept me on hold listening to their bollocks entertainment. I’ve been through this before, including earlier that day; It’s
all about delegation, you see. I phone up, give them my details and security
passwords, they decide it’s too hard and likely to make them go past home time,
so they forward my call onto someone else ‘who can help’. I am placed back on
hold, which is when song number one on their playlist comes on. Someone answers
and I repeat the problem before they interrupt to ask my passwords. They inform
me I’ve been put through to the wrong department and the song starts up again. Repeat
this times ten.
During this circular game, the kids approach for food and I
remember dinner. The potato and kumara chips I chopped earlier to Lorde’s sound
track are now crisp in the oven but I hadn’t got the veges or chicken on. I
switch off the oven – dinner will have to be staggered tonight.
I am now onto a young Kiwi guy who sounds like he knows his
stuff and – hurray - I can understand! He asks permission to take over my
computer from his end and I call my very bored daughter over to watch the
cursor magically fly around the screen off its own accord. She looks from the
cursor to me in wonderment and mouths “Wh-at?”.
She knows to be quiet because mummy’s on the phone and keeps
telling her noisy brothers to shush. They’re well over it though and whatever’s
on the screen of the ipad is holding them enthralled, causing raucous
exclamations. I’m done with telling them to be quiet – I’m sure the IT gurus
have heard worse and I had to listen to Lorde on repeat for an hour, after-all,
putting me off an iconic Kiwi singer.
While he is mucking round with my computer I take leave of
my chair and make another attempt at dinner. He tells me the screen has frozen
at his end and asks how things are looking my end. I am looking at a fry pan, but
he doesn’t know that. I run back to the computer.
It appears the man has fixed my problem but he’s thorough –
he wants to check something else. I want to go. The boys have emerged from
their devises, and Missy has decided she’s had enough of being quiet. They are
all making a racket and bemoaning their empty stomachs. I need to put the veges
and chicken on and also need to go bathroom.
I am back in email-land and tell him politely, I no longer
care about retrieving the last few days emails I’ve lost, and with a headache
from the loud, tinny music, hang up and pick up where life left off an hour earlier.
I never did find out what song number two was but I hope I
never do.
No comments:
Post a Comment