Hi Guys
Sorry if this post gets a bit long -winded, but I had to share it with you all......!!
All Mings family and friends have Iphone 4's, and Ming suggested that we should get one each, she can speak and have video with all her friends and family in China, and she and I can keep in touch when I am at work...all for free on Skype or QQ.
So....bright and early on Sat morning, we trecked off to the Apple Shop in Perth...there is only 1 Apple shop here, so I guess they have a monopoly ....bad start !!!!!
We stood waiting for 40 minutes for some attention, and eventually a pimply-faced child (looked about 9 years old to me !!) sloped over and said.."Whhaddya want Mate"
Firstly, I felt the need to explain that I never was, could never be, was not the slightest bit interested in being his mate or anything else, and could we get some service here because we wanted to buy 2 phones......
We were directed to a queue...and waited again for 30 minutes, and were approached by another child (probably just out of diapers) who seemed to be a bit put out having to explain phone technology to a wrinkly like me...( I should point out here that my existing phone only makes phone calls, does not do anything else and is just within my technical capabilites)....I was bombarded with "Apps, 3G, MB, wifi and many other nysterious doings and was developing:
A) A headache
B) A deep loathing of phones and child phone sellers.
Meanwhile, Ming was getting "that look"...which to me signals that her "shitometer" has hit red-line and somebody is going to cop it big-time !!!!
Having now got a real bad headache and struggling to decide which bloody phone to buy, I caved in and pointed at the most expensive version, on the asumption that this farce should not continue much longer...the child seller had no more work to "up-sell ' me !!!!
Having got, and paid for these technological monsters, we were directed to yet ANOTHER queue, where we were told we must wait in line to get the phones "synched"...no, dont ask me what that was for...dont have a clue. This process involved many mumbo jumbos betwen phone and computer and many foreign words being exchanged to worship whatever phone Gods live inside these things. Ming was now very agitated...and frustrated because she wanted to let rip, but her English was not good enough to properly express what she was going to do to these clowns who did not understand the meaning of service...as she said to me "In China we would be fighting off the multitude of knowlegable shop assistants and if she wanted an Iphone in Chengdu, she would never take more than 30 minutes for the whole deal !!
I patiently explained that "this is how things are in Aus,,,just relax, it will soon be over.........
But no........it continues........the next queue was to get the phone to do something else which involved going into "Itunes"...I explained that I NEVER wanted to use my phone for music, I have a hi-fi at home for that...but apparently Itunes has something else to do with set-up processes.
AND THANK ALL THE LUCKY COINCIDENCES ON THE PLANET....the "pimply" in the Itunes department was a Chinese boy..................
So Ming asked politely..."do you speak Chinese"...to which pimply responded with a condescending and superior air..."of course I do"...that was his biggest mistake of the week......
So then she simply blew a fuse and went for it...........I have never heard anything like it, and neither had all the people in the shop !!!! in no time flat, a large crowd had gathered to watch this performance as my pocket rocket tore this guy to pieces...he was reeling and blubbering and blustering at the impact of it............I of course, in complete support of my LP had slunk off to a corner, found a seat and watched the drama develop........brave Man me !!!!!
The whole thing attracted the Shop Manager (luckily he was a mature adult of about 18 years, but he was not Chinese so could not really make any contribution to the issue, instead he just told the Chinese pimply to go to the staff room and took Ming over to another counter......where he tried to placate her with several free gifts...Iphone case, quality ear phones and probably would have given her his car just to shut her up.
What really tickled me was at the end of it all, the whole set of bystanders broke into a round of applause for my LP..........gotta love 'em dont you !!!!!....
Total time to buy 2 Iphones...4 hours 28 minutes............
ps...I have probably been a bit too critical of Iphone 4....so I take it all back, I have just bought 2 "Apps" for $1....one turns the phone into a neat spirit-level and the other turns it into a "Dirty Harry" long barrelled colt .45....so I can now use my "other" phone for phone calls and chuck this monster in my tool-box....I can get exact levels on my building projects, and if I ever get accosted by a bad guy I can point the phone at him and say "Well do you feel lucky Punk "