Oh how the tables have turned!
THEY say that what goes around comes around and no one is feeling that more right now than muggins here.
As you might remember from earlier posts I’ve recently moved back home and so being the generous soul that I am, I’ve taken over responsibility for the phone bill.
Mammy and Daddy Dunne are frugal folk who make long distance calls with the same trepidation as Bill O’Herlihy goes into a television studio with Eamon Dunphy, so I figured I’d be safe enough.
They usually call relatives in England or the States with a rushed ‘can’ttalknowtooexpensivejustringingtosaywe’reallsafehereinIrelandbye’ so bi-monthly phone bills usually total about €35 give or take.
Combined with €60 for my broadband, I figured I’d get away with a €100 bill every two months, which is reasonable enough.
Until last night….
……..when I got home to find the bill had arrived and the folks were studiously avoiding my eyes.
“Hello love” they greeted me brightly in a slightly hysterical tone, bustling around taking off my coat, putting the dinner on and in short doing everything to avoid mentioning the dirty big bill almost shouting at me from the table.
“What’s going on? Why are you being nice to me” I asked suspiciously, picking up the envelope and noticing the Eircom stamp on it.
I started to open it slowly until I realised the folks were guiltily backing away from me and trying to get through the narrow kitchen door at the same time (a scuffle ensued and Daddy Dunne won, he can move when he wants to).
The penny dropped and I quickly ripped open the rest of the envelope suddenly desperate to see how much this was going to set me back.
The first thing I noticed was the ‘page one of 29’ line at the top of the bill (not a good sign, we’re itemised) swiftly followed by the grand total of €202.32.
In two months my normally sensible parents had almost quadrupled their phone bill, drunk on the knowledge that they wouldn’t have to pay for it and so had taken to ringing all in sundry gleefully proclaiming “we can talk for aaaaages, sure it’s freeeeeeeeee”.
I have to admit, when I was a teenager I spent literally hours every day on the phone, talking to friends I had literally just left (“Hi, it’s me. What are you doing? Nothing? Me too.”) so I guess it’s just God’s way of getting me back. Damn you Jesus!
Well, no more. I let them away with it this month because they were so contrite and fearful but not anymore.
I’m off now to buy a coin operated phone. With a padlock. And an alarm. And I’m barring all long distance numbers.
Parents eh?
Photo: www.allproducts.com
posted by KnackeredKaz @ 4:09 p.m.
5 Comments:
HA, sorry to be gleefully reading this, but it makes me sadistically content to know that in years to come I can run up extraordinarily large phone bills for the Young Wan when she is grown up and I come to visit.
Ha, I thought you'd like that one!
Well we used to all split the phone bill at home, except for me mother who claimed she wasnt paying for it as she never used it. This was after getting some bills that were 200 or 300 pounds, not euro's. We all started to chip in to pay it, there was 4 children living at home at the time plus me da used to pay some of it aswell.
Well we signed up for itemised billing and one time we got the bill it was higher than usual so we sat down to check it out and one number stood out. It was my sisters number. There was days when the number was called 10 times, sometimes twice in a minute, like for example call placed at 12.15.05 pm for 30 seconds then at 12.15.55. so after talking to her for 30 seconds, 10 seconds later she would ring her back!!!
When we looked at the times it was always during the day as neither my sister or mother worked. Yet all the members of the family who paid the phone bill worked!
So in good humour we confronted my mother about this but she just tried to bluster her way out of it but it was plain to see who was causing the phone bill to sky rocket each month, the same person who didnt think she had to pay a share as she never used it. We got great craic out of pointing this out to her, but fair play to her she just held her head up and told us all that the bill had to be wrong.
I mean it wasnt the case as if we could make her pay for it pr if we would even try to make her pay for it.
Go the whole hog, give them their own shelf in the fridge ask them to label "their" milk cartons.
My parents are with Euphony. We have free local and national calls. You can have a separate internet so it's all good.
Can't find their internet site though.
They don't advertise at all except through word of mouth. That's how they afford it. They're great.
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