The 5th December started well. A ex-class mate whose
daughter had been missing for 6 weeks in southern Nigeria had been found. It
was Christmas come early and a giant sigh of relief escaped from us all. I had
been pleasantly surprised by the number of people (562) who had shared the Missing Poster on Facebook.
Many also expressed their joy that she had been found. These are people who
have never met the 12 year old before. They have never heard her voice or
laugh. That is the beauty of our shared humanity. We can relate and send out
prayers and good wishes to strangers, and we have the ability to rejoice for
others, who we may never meet in this lifetime. I have not even seen my colleague
for 31 years.
But I see my young son daily and the two year old made his presence
felt by flinging one of his tiny cars across the room. It landed on my laptop
screen and shattered it. Now I have no I phone and no laptop!
Ha!!!!
Sunday the 9 th of December saw me on MC duties at
the Mansag (Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain) Christmas
party. During a spare moment with one of my GP colleagues I began to moan
about my lost phone, and the first question was about insurance. I said I had
none.
‘What about your Bank Account?’ he asked. The question triggered
something in my brain. The next day I found out that not only was I insured for
lost telephones, all my household were covered under the same umbrella.
In no time all the insurance claims had been done with the
corresponding paper work. I had gone to my network provider to collect a new
SIM card and rang customer service to disable the lost phone. If the claim was
successful, I would be paying £100 on the insurance excess (Not sure what that
means), but it was still worth getting a new phone. I did feel that this
Insurance company had trust issues when I read the following on the claim form:
We need to see
something that tells us that the items you’re claiming for belongs to you and
confirms the make, model, memory size, colour and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity
) number of your mobile phone.
Problems really expose you. One and most important is I
don’t read the small print and when I do I forget.
I am one of those that scrolls to the bottom and clicks the
I Accept icon every time. Time to change? I do not think so.
My saving grace is that I tell my problems to people who I
consider to have a bit of sense. You know the type who would commiserate with
you, laugh at the ironies, but end the conversation with, ‘have you thought
of…?’
Telling your woes to people who just say ‘Pele, Pele’ (Not
the Brazillian legend), is a waste of time.
It is simple, if you will not read the small print and
pontificate on every detail, then you must be humble, be a good judging of
human character and be able to take action without having all the information
available to you. I find that creative people find the routine things of life
‘boring’, hence the high number of them that get ripped off by accountants and
managers. We are what we are. Socrates says know thyself and Sunbola says shine
ya eyes.
It is impossible to eat your cake and have it. One cannot be
visionary and sweat the small stuff, and one cannot have everything planned out
to perfection and expect to creatively spring the unexpected. One has to accept
one’s limitations and if reading eight to twenty paged contracts are totally
unpalatable, then one must humble oneself and do what the clever friends say or
hint at.
Still without an I phone and a Laptop, I find myself on the
12th of December 2018, twenty two years since the loss of my father.
He never owned an I phone or laptop during his life, so I am sure he must be
wondering what the fuss is. May his soul continue to rest in peace. I am now
rocking my Nokia telephone and my I pod for Facebook; which I access only when
at home enjoying Wifi. I have been loaned a laptop by my wife who has two laptops and I find myself
struggling with this fall from grace. Landlord Laptop ‘flexing’ to Tenant
laptop living.
William Shakespeare had no Laptop and see what he wrote.
Maybe God is working something great in my life.Its the Twelfth Night after all
in The Winter tale of December. Finger’s
crossed for All’s well that ends well.
13th December; I jumped into the car and gave my
broken laptop to the repairer. He wondered why I was still repairing a broken
screen in an old Hp when I could have gotten a younger model long ago. He
obviously knows nothing about loyalty and the attachment a writer develops to
the tools of his trade. He didn’t actually say anything but I read his mind. I
paid the fee in full and I went back home.
I sat at my table I brought out all my forms and I rang the insurance company, armed with Policy
Numbers, Claim Numbers, and Numbers 28 verse 8 How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? (Desperate times,
spiritual measures please).
A happy voice took all my details and asked me questions
like it was a Visa interview to gain entrance into the Federal Reserve of America. After lengthy
security questions he said he couldn’t see my claim on the system and and blamed the high
volume postage traffic of the ‘Christmas season’. I wondered if he was really
at the office in front of a Desktop and not sat on the toilet working from home.
It would have been impolite to ask.
17 th December; I got a phone call from a nice sounding lady. The
insurance company had received my claim and wanted to go over some details.
Just for security, a few questions….I was taken aback that the contents of my
breakfast plate were not asked for.
‘When last did you see your phone?’
‘When last did your use it?’
‘Where was the phone when last seen?’ on and on she went like
a Sherlock Holmes’ descendant.
Then came the joker, ‘The EE letter you kindly sent showed
that the phone was last used on the third of December. You lost it on the
first?’ Silence. I hadn’t read that letter. The letter that started thus:
Dear Wilson Orhiunu,
This is a confirmation of the date of the supply or connection, blacklisting and last
usuage of your device
And ended
Date last used: 03
december 2018
Time last used:
15:19:06
Congratulations, your claim has been accepted.
I just knew there was a catch when strangers congratulate
you. Then it came up that reconditioned phones are involved!
Now who wants to share phones with strangers? The argument
started.
‘Well Doctor it is written in the terms and conditions’
Ha! Do I know where the mouths of the previous owners have
been?
Talk of quality assurance gave me no assurance. Neither did
the talk of a twelve month guarantee.
Why pay £100 for a second hand phone when I can buy the
second hand phone myself?
‘Well, if you had read the terms and conditions…’
My alarm went off by 6am on the 18 th of
Demcember but I couldn’t get out of bed. The run the night before was
exhilarating but come morning, the above 50 tax must be pain. No pain no gain.
A high profile lost his job due to a run of losses on the pitch and I said, ‘Ehen?
Over £20 Million in compensation. Is that a sack? There would be someone in
Lagos sacked today and he would be owed four month’s wages.
A text message came in that my phone will be delivered by
1.57pm and in ten minutes I got a call that my laptop was ready for collecting.
I drove in the rain to pick up the laptop and on the way home branched at the
EE store to arrange for my Sim only contract. By the time I got home the phone
had been delivered and was charging.
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