Sunday, February 19, 2006

802.11b Blues

INT. - MAPLINS ELECTRONICS - DAY

Polish* Shop Assistant: Can I help you?

Me: Yes, my wireless gateway is broken. I need a new one, which one do you recommend?

Assistant: It isn't broken.

Me: No, it is.

Assistant: What makes you think it's broken?

Me: It hasn't picked up the internet for four days.

Assistant: It isn't broken. I am electronics. I know.

Me: It's totally broken. I've been having to dial up to my French ISP. Long-distance! International! Expensive! Slow connection! I've been trying to receive an allegedly legendary cover of "Sweet Child O' Mine" for two days!

Assistant: Bring it to me. I am electronics. I fix it.

Me: But then I'd have to go home to get it, and it's a long way, and I'm wearing three-inch heels. Can't I just buy a new one?

Assistant: No, it isn't broken. I know. You don't need a new one.

Me: But...but...I can't live without the internet! I've been having to do other things. You know, watch telly. Read books. See my friends. It's been awful.

Assistant: Don't worry. I fix it. I am electronics.

Ten minutes later:

INT. - DIXONS - DAY

Me: I'll have this wireless gateway, please.

Assistant: Fine.

Me: Woo!


* Lest anyone think I'm a xenophobe, I only include this information to explain his curious repetition of the phrase "I am electronics".

6 comments:

James Henry said...

That's my new favourite phrase, ta.

patroclus said...

I think it's a song by Kraftwerk, isn't it?

LC said...

I think what he meant to say is: 'I am electronics. You are small blonde girl who cannot possibly comprehend the infinite complexity of consumer grade wireless networking hardware and have probably just forgot to configure the DCHP settings or something equally foolish. I will demonstrate superior knowledge of DCHP protocol to you, and then coffee and flirting, no?"

patroclus said...

Funnily enough, as a chat-up strategy, that one would probably have had half a chance of working. I could have told him about the time I manually reconfigured the DNS settings to circumvent Bulldog's broken DNS. It could have been beautiful.

Although I'm more of a software-geek girl, really.

frangelita said...

*dim non-blonde alert* err, what's a wireless gateway? Does it go to Agarttha?

patroclus said...

Ahahahaaa, frangelita! It might well go to Agarttha. Or at least to www.agarttha.com (which features an attractive naked lady on its homepage, esoterica fact fans).

Umm, on a more rational note, it's a box with blinking lights on it that you plug into the phone line to get wireless broadband.