My (Affectionately Named) Diddy Purple Flippy Phone Has Died A Death.

=sad face=

Yesterday morning, t'was.
     I turned on my phone upon waking up, as per the norm, and instead of turning white, then black again - with the snappy "welcome from T-mobile!!" greeting appearing in white3 font - before revealing the nifty red and blue spotty pattern I had decided I'd like to look at every time I flipped my Diddy Purple Flippy Phone open, the screen instead flashed white for the briefest of instants before turning a rather ugly dark-ish shade of mottled blue.
     And that's how it stayed.

I tried everything I could think of, which admittedly wasn't all that much:
     I turned it off and then on again.
     I took out the battery and then put it back before turning it on again.
     I took the battery out again and blew on it, then blew on the SIM card as well for good measure before putting them back and turning it on again.
     I even used the tried and tested method of 'this doesn't work; give it a whack and see what happens'.

The end result of each attempt was the same:
     No change.

Fearing the worst, I took it down to the -EE- shop in town (previously called the T-Mobile shop) and asked one of the nice sales assistants there if anything could be done.
     After going through the motions that I had already tried, her prognosis was glum. There would be no reprieve. The SIM card was working, but the screen, and therefore the Diddy Purple Phone itself, was dead as a doornail.
     .....Drat. Drat. Double drat.

A new phone was in order.
     Naturally, being an adventurous sort of person, I wanted one precisely the same as the last one. It had, after all, lasted nearly three years of rough treatment in my well-meaning but immensely clumsy care, which in terms of modern technology (which is designed to last between 6-12 months at best) is immensely wonderful. And in any case, I liked it. It was Diddy. And Purple. And didn't access the Interweb or take pictures or video or anything like that (which I am aware is supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread or however it is phrased nowadays, but I definitely and unutterably DO NOT WANT).

The girl took me over to the phone stand.
     The best they could offer me was an updated version of the Diddy Phone. It looked a little different, slightly longer and slimmer, freakishly shiny; but the basic functions were promised to be "reasonably" the same. It still can't access the Interweb or take pictures, anyway, which is the main thing (it can be used as a radio, apparently, but meh; we'll forgive it).

Only problem was; no longer was there a wide choice of colours. Due to a lack of demand, only two colour options remained.  White, or black. That was it.
     Boy, was I disappointed.
     But I handled it maturely and took it in my stride (as you do); a brief pout and a "really? Just these? No purple?" and that was it.
     I decided on black - no contest really. Nothing I own that starts its life as white stays that way for very long - and followed the perky sales assistant obediently to the counter to make my purchase.
     £19.99, t'was, £10 of that being the obligatory Top Up  Voucher/Card that comes with all Pay-As-You-Go mobile phones whether you want it or not.
     As someone paying a monthly fee for a contract - and a very nice little contract it is too. Does all that I need it to; more in fact, and t'is a mere £6 per month. It was £8.49 originally, but went down once I had been subscribed (is that the word?) for 2 years without making any changes to it - of course, I fall into the latter category. But, eh; cest la vi. I am the one that has eschewed the idea of having an 'ordinary' phone in favour of a 'simple' one (or at least as 'simple' as you can get the damn things to be these days). Had I have wanted to, I could have accepted the phone that came free with the contract originally, rather than turning my nose up at it and paying £19.99 to purchase my Diddy Purple Flippy Phone, but I chose not to. I wanted the Diddy Purple Flippy Phone instead, so that was what I had (though at the time because the contract was just being established, the sales assistant kindly made use of a loophole she knew to exist within the system and the cost of the £10 top up was entered into the computer as "a credit payment of £10 to be used when payment is next due").

My mature and professional-esque manner dimmed somewhat when we reached the counter, however, and she began asking questions such as "what type of contract are you on, currently?" and "what type of SIM card are you using?"; both of which gained a half blank, half panicked stare - picture a deer in headlights - in response, followed by a barely coherent and annoyingly rambling description of how much the contract costs per month (and how much it cost to begin with) and what the SIM card looks like (which as it turns out, apparently, is what all of them look like).
     To give the gallant young woman credit where credit is due; now faced with the fact that she was dealing with someone whose knowledge of technology is on a par with that of the more dimwitted of the goldfish family, her smile didn't slip and her friendly manner did not alter. Gentle probing and carefully worded questions on her part (eventually) produced the answers she needed, and we were able (at last) to proceeded with payment, which thankfully went off without a hitch.
     That done, I was free to pop my old SIM card into my new phone and exit the store to go on my merry way and do whatever it was I had planned, and the sales assistant was free to go on her merry way and do whatever it was she had planed (in my case; go to work. In hers; probably excuse herself and take a quick break, praying that the next person she dealt with was not as much of an idiot as the last).

So! I have a new phone.
     It is still a Flippy Phone.
     It works in almost exactly the same way as my old one.
     It is much the same size as my old one.
     It costs exactly the same amount to run as my old one.

BUT; it is not Purple. Not even a little bit purple.

=SIGHS=

.....I am really not mature at all, am I.....?

Alice x

P.S:  as an unhappy side note, it wasn't until much later that I realised that although all the names and telephone numbers ("contacts", the sales assistant said they were called) were there in my new Diddy Black Flippy Phone as promised and unchanged, the text messages I had carefully saved - including the 12 or so messages that I had sent to my Father to cheer him up while he was stuck in hospital in the days leading up to his untimely death - weren't.
     They were gone. Forever.
     That was around about when my 'oh-that-sucks-but-what-can-you-do' attitude evaporated and was replaced by acute hysteria.

.....But that is a post for another day.....