The other day I went to buy myself a new cellphone because apparently making calls and sending hasty text messages and using the phone to remotely control your kids just doesn’t cut it anymore. They have this new thing where you can surf t’internet and pick up your email and gab with your friends in real time and such. And because YT is a typical Nicelander who must always have the latest, best and most superexcellent in all things gadgetry [not really], and also because AAH needed a triband phone she could use in the States and my old clunker fit the bill, I decided it was time to upgrade.
Anyway, so off I go to old Kringlan mall and wander into a store and promptly break into a sweat because ALL THOSE PHONES that do all those different things that I’ve never even heard of before and, well, it was all just kind of overwhelming. So this girl comes over and asks if she can help me pick one, and all I knew was that it had to be Nokia because I’ve always owned a Nokia and everyone in the household owns a Nokia and it’s good because we can all use the same phone chargers, and besides it was useful for narrowing things down a bit. Oh, and I also wanted to be able to pick up my email. That was all.
So, long story short, I go home with this model of phone, except in a lovely white, and after admiring it for a bit I break it open [I’m not kidding, I had to use force] and stick my SIM card in and start playing around with the settings and such. It had this bit of plastic pasted over the screen and the plastic had the logo of my phone company printed on it, and I fiddled with it a bit more [frustrated as hell, if you must know] before removing the plastic, and it was at that point that I realized that the logo and name of the phone company was not on the plastic but embedded in the actual phone itself.
In other words: at the top of the phone: NOKIA. Below that, just beneath the screen, this

[Except the name was to the right of the logo.]
I dunno. Call me anal, if you will if you shall if you must, but the more I looked at that sucker, the more it bugged the hell out of me. It looked like an ugly blemish - nay, a grotesque pimple - on my pearly white 3G Nokia phone. Particularly - and this is important - because the model I looked at in the store DID NOT have such a grotesque pimple on its pristine black surface, so effectively I had been sold a phone that was different from the one I had viewed in the store. Besides, I thought it was pretty damn presumptuous of old Vodafone to expect me to just advertise their brand for them - FOR FREE - for the next two or three years, when they hadn’t even asked me nicely. Or, actually, when they hadn’t even asked me at all.
By the end of the evening, I’d decided I wanted a new phone. One that didn’t have that dastardly Vodafone advertisting logo on it [by this time it was all I saw when I looked at the phone]. After all, I have no particular loyalties to Vodafone - and what if, a few months down the road, I decided to switch phone companies? I’d be with Síminn, or NOVA, or Tal or whatever, and my phone would still read VODAFONE in big screaming letters. Which would just be stupid, like the whole thing was stupid.
So, the next morning I get on the blower to the Vodafone service centre. The girl on the other end talked to me like I was demented when I explained that I wanted a phone that didn’t have a Vodafone logo. “Why? Didn’t you buy it from Vodafone?” - Well yes, I bought it from Vodafone, but … . “Yeah, ok, but we don’t have those phones without the logo.” - Well then I’d like a refund. She laughed in my ear. “A refund? HAHAHHA!” Finally she said I could TRY to talk to the store manager at the main Vodafone store … but her tone of voice made it quite clear that she was purrritty damn sure I wasn’t gonna get anywhere.
RING RING!
YT: Hello, is this the manager of the Vodafone store?
MANAGER OF THE VODAFONE STORE: Yes.
YT: Yeah, hi. I bought this phone [blah] … logo … [blah] … advertise … [blah]… refund.
MOTVS: If you’ve already put your SIM card in it we can’t take it back. It’s a used phone.
YT: Yes, but the phone I looked at in the store didn’t have the logo on it. I get the phone home and it’s got a logo. That’s not the same phone as the one I thought I was buying.
MOTVS: If you’d returned it as soon as you saw the phone had a logo and not put the SIM card in it, I could have taken it back, but you didn’t. You put the SIM card in and now it’s not the same phone as the one you bought.
YT: I thought the logo was on the plastic. I don’t usually start by taking the plastic off.
MOTVS: Well, if the logo bothered you so much, why didn’t you start by checking to see if it was actually on the plastic?
Ah. Yes. Icelandic customer service - at its finest. So after ascertaining that this was her final answer, that she absolutely was not going to take the phone back, I did the grown-up equivalent of running to mommy: I called the Consumers Union.
To be continued …
WEATHER!
Blustery and cool. It was gorgeous yesterday, this morning still pretty nice with just a thin veil of cloud and hardly any wind, but by afternoon it was chilly and blowing pretty hard, at least out by the golf course where EPI and I took a brisk stroll to imbibe some fresh air. Currently 12°C [54F], sunrise was at 3:57 am, sunset at 11:08 pm. Getting darker fast!
