When Lack Of Service Fee Is Gold!
Jan 18, 2004
I woke up on Monday morning feeling like a vital piece of my life had been severed.
By Angela Nampewo
I woke up on Monday morning feeling like a vital piece of my life had been severed. But I did not miss it. After two solid days without the MTN Better Connection, logic dictated that I should have gotten up in a panic on the third day and rush to the nearest dealer to have the above connection restored. But I did not.
I went about the house calmly, uninterrupted by early morning calls from unknown people, asking me questions whose answers I did not have. I have not told you this before, but there is a group of people who are convinced that my phone number belongs to a certain Hajji-unknown to me in town. I get calls and even beeps from these people. And when I confess my ignorance as to the identity of the said Hajji, some of them get very annoyed. As you can see, I did not miss any of this.
Thanks to bad timing and a series of well-coordinated events last weekend, Monday morning found me without service fee, as we like to call it, even though what you finally get for your money at the shop is a card and not a fee at all.
This is how it all happened. Out of idle curiosity, I rang MTN’s 156 at about 10:00pm on Friday night only to discover that was the very night of my disconnection. Just in case I have not already mentioned: I live in a remote part of Kireka. This place is so remote that it is rumoured there are even night dancers in the neighbourhood. Now, having told you that, it is clear just how terribly impossible it was for me to leave the house and go in search of ‘service fee’. I sat and watched helplessly as the seconds rushed past, bringing on midnight and my worst fears.
After two surprisingly long hours, the clock struck 12:00am. Promptly, the telephone company cut me off from the outside world and I went to sleep, a troubled woman.
Why I did not restore the missing link on the following day, I can only attribute to well-laid plans. As fate would have it, this is the one weekend I had decided I would not leave home, not even for the service fee. “What is the worst that can happen if I don’t get it right now?†I asked myself stubbornly.
As I learnt later, a lot of things happened. The people, who called me and could not get through, were more than a little annoyed. I dreaded all the hate mail, which I knew would come pouring in once I rejoined the network. We live in an age where people hate you if they cannot reach you at their convenience. Since it was I who had committed the grave sin of not being available, when I was required, I found it necessary to feel a little remorse over this telephone crisis.
There is one thing I do not regret, and that is shutting out the likes of ‘mama baby’, who saw it fit to call me late one night to inquire (not very politely) about a missing husband who was unknown to me. I do have a few male friends with wives and babies, but I’ would like to think they were all at home. If ever a good thing came out of not having service fee, it was that I did not have to listen to the long tales of misguided wives in search of mischievous husbands.
At the end of the first day without phone service, I realised just how many times a day I reach for my phone and for no good reason at all, expect that it is there. Most of all, I missed sending silly text messages, something I do a lot on Sundays, just for the heck of it because everybody assumes it is cheaper to send messages on Sundays.
I also missed carrying my phone around the house in the little elephant print bag. When wearing clothes without pockets, being in possession of a phone is almost an inconvenience. I do not know if I am just daft but I have not met any female who has confessed to having the same problem. In the meantime, I am quite happy to dump the phone in the elephant bag and go about my chores, as usual.
A lot of things have been said about good things coming out of bad situations. In my case, when the world of telecommunications closed its door on me, a window was flung open in unexpected quarters. Courtesy of this phone blackout, I had a vacation on my hands.
I was totally unreachable and even the boss could not call me back to the office for anything. I cleaned house, read all the books in my vicinity and painted my nails for hours.
I have read somewhere that people lose a certain portion of their IQ while on vacation. I only hope that my vacation was not long enough to cause any deficiencies, as I must return to a world where I am answerable.
Ends
I woke up on Monday morning feeling like a vital piece of my life had been severed. But I did not miss it. After two solid days without the MTN Better Connection, logic dictated that I should have gotten up in a panic on the third day and rush to the nearest dealer to have the above connection restored. But I did not.
I went about the house calmly, uninterrupted by early morning calls from unknown people, asking me questions whose answers I did not have. I have not told you this before, but there is a group of people who are convinced that my phone number belongs to a certain Hajji-unknown to me in town. I get calls and even beeps from these people. And when I confess my ignorance as to the identity of the said Hajji, some of them get very annoyed. As you can see, I did not miss any of this.
Thanks to bad timing and a series of well-coordinated events last weekend, Monday morning found me without service fee, as we like to call it, even though what you finally get for your money at the shop is a card and not a fee at all.
This is how it all happened. Out of idle curiosity, I rang MTN’s 156 at about 10:00pm on Friday night only to discover that was the very night of my disconnection. Just in case I have not already mentioned: I live in a remote part of Kireka. This place is so remote that it is rumoured there are even night dancers in the neighbourhood. Now, having told you that, it is clear just how terribly impossible it was for me to leave the house and go in search of ‘service fee’. I sat and watched helplessly as the seconds rushed past, bringing on midnight and my worst fears.
After two surprisingly long hours, the clock struck 12:00am. Promptly, the telephone company cut me off from the outside world and I went to sleep, a troubled woman.
Why I did not restore the missing link on the following day, I can only attribute to well-laid plans. As fate would have it, this is the one weekend I had decided I would not leave home, not even for the service fee. “What is the worst that can happen if I don’t get it right now?†I asked myself stubbornly.
As I learnt later, a lot of things happened. The people, who called me and could not get through, were more than a little annoyed. I dreaded all the hate mail, which I knew would come pouring in once I rejoined the network. We live in an age where people hate you if they cannot reach you at their convenience. Since it was I who had committed the grave sin of not being available, when I was required, I found it necessary to feel a little remorse over this telephone crisis.
There is one thing I do not regret, and that is shutting out the likes of ‘mama baby’, who saw it fit to call me late one night to inquire (not very politely) about a missing husband who was unknown to me. I do have a few male friends with wives and babies, but I’ would like to think they were all at home. If ever a good thing came out of not having service fee, it was that I did not have to listen to the long tales of misguided wives in search of mischievous husbands.
At the end of the first day without phone service, I realised just how many times a day I reach for my phone and for no good reason at all, expect that it is there. Most of all, I missed sending silly text messages, something I do a lot on Sundays, just for the heck of it because everybody assumes it is cheaper to send messages on Sundays.
I also missed carrying my phone around the house in the little elephant print bag. When wearing clothes without pockets, being in possession of a phone is almost an inconvenience. I do not know if I am just daft but I have not met any female who has confessed to having the same problem. In the meantime, I am quite happy to dump the phone in the elephant bag and go about my chores, as usual.
A lot of things have been said about good things coming out of bad situations. In my case, when the world of telecommunications closed its door on me, a window was flung open in unexpected quarters. Courtesy of this phone blackout, I had a vacation on my hands.
I was totally unreachable and even the boss could not call me back to the office for anything. I cleaned house, read all the books in my vicinity and painted my nails for hours.
I have read somewhere that people lose a certain portion of their IQ while on vacation. I only hope that my vacation was not long enough to cause any deficiencies, as I must return to a world where I am answerable.
Ends