OUR DEVICES

The inspiration for the brilliant idea for this blogpost has to be shared between @habukia and @moverick.

I was going to re-activate my Spectranet internet service as it falls due on the 29^th and they usually disconnect at 0:00am so I meant to do it around 11pm on said date. As is usual, when I send the girls to bed, I rest for a few minutes in bed but recently, my days have been such that when I rest for those few minutes, I wake up hours later and so I woke up around 2am on the 29^th and was mentally kicking myself for losing the 24G of data I had left that I thought I now could not roll over. All day, it preyed on my mind especially as Spectranet also kept up a steady stream of e-mails and texts advertising the promo about getting twice the volume of data for whatever price you paid. I was reminded that I had 2days more to take them up on the offer and as I lamented to Padi Mi about the loss of the 24G, I decided now was as good a time as any to re-activate the internet.

 Imagine my delight and surprise when I opened my Spectranet Selfcare and realized it had automatically updated and I now had 62G of data!

I had tweeted to lament earlier in the day about my 24G loss and so I found that tweet and updated about my new plenty G status and ‘Miss Trobusome’ (aka @habukia) responded and I told her about how that will not last very long with our 8 always-on devices between the three of us.

Also, I had been doing beggy beggy for a new phone on Twitter but I have mostly poor people as friends or they want me to think they are even though I know different and had had no takers. And I was mostly begging for cheap phones oh! Tecno Camon C9 and such like. Nothing iPhone-ney oh! Anyway, one who I badgered into agreeing to send me a phone then said I could send the one I had and was bored with (don’t let the kind gentleman who bought it for me hear oh!). So, I then was telling him about all the devices we have here and got the idea to do this blogpost as I thought you’d like to know about them too.

1. There’s lappie, this one, current champion and fave. My touch screen Acer laptop bought me by my sister and her nice husband (sis can be nice on occasion too but she's Ijebu! Though much better than me). I had asked for a laptop and my brother-in-law had gone to the store around the same time and seen this at a steal so I had got a laptop for free even though I was doing shakara that the money was in my offshore account. El-oh-el!

2. There’s my old laptop, my Dell that was bought with American Government money when I arrived Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2011 for my Fulbright experience. Mayowa and I had gone into BestBuy to get it after we had gone in and bought the first that didn’t power on after taking it out of the box. It is mostly domiciled in the office nowadays and mostly used as a desktop as the battery does not hold any charge anymore. And that is actually the second battery as I had ordered one through Seyi years ago.

3.There’s my tablet, mostly for reading books. My Samsung Galaxy that I got one nice gentleman to bring me when he was coming into Nigeria for some literary thing one time. I had driven to where he was to pick it up and had paid for it later on. I bought it as replacement for my Kindle that packed up one day after I was frustrated by the offers BestBuy was giving me to replace it.

4. There’s Mov1’s Innjoo tablet that I had sold her netbook to buy cos I felt she really could get all she was doing on the netbook done on the tablet. Plus everytime I saw that netbook, I wanted to slap a certain someone. First for making me leave it when I was going to the US to enhance communication with my daughters and which was never so used and for being his tool to gain access to my social media platforms. @#!&%!!! 

The Innjoo tab is one of the shortest in lifespan devices we have ever had as she took a tumble down the stairs in heels holding it a week after she got it and it only houses her pictures. That reminds me, need to get those pictures off and dispose of it.

5.Then her Innjoo phone, I had decided she needed a new phone to cheer her up at some point and had bought her that one. During a visit to their other parent, something went down and Mov2 is said to have cracked its screen, I generally don’t hear things like that. I still don’t know its screen is cracked even though it’s plain to see.

6.There is my Infinix Hot Note. Perfect but I am ready for something else. I badgered my friend for the money for it and he sent it to me less 500naira (evul man!) and I bought it but he held its charger ransom for several months. Some people cannot do you any good, they must sha squat down with it ni….

7.There is my former phone, the Hauwei that I went to buy with Tolu, I was very determined to get a new phone that day. I was even going to pay 50k or so for a Samsung that I liked and then I entered that new Play store and my eyes locked on the Hauwei and Joke had been talking about it before I left the UK that year on holiday. And it was 20k less. The Ijebu in me had an epiphany and walked out with it. 

Mov1 has it most days, for what, I don’t know. She usually just has it with her.

8.Then there is that phone I bought Mov2 when she passed like I desired her to. She had promised to work harder and I saw her trying and it was enough for me. We had walked into the Etisalat store at the mall together and she picked it after I asked for phones in the price range I was willing to shell out for a phone for her.

9.There is my BB that I bought to replace the one that I bought to stay in touch with le ex. I had held that old one one day at work outside my office and had the thought that it might drop out of my hand. Now, considering my office is on the 4^th floor, I knew it would not end well and drop it did. And it died, so I went to that phone store at the mall where some guy is always rude and condescending and got this one. Lately, I have desired to use just one phone and so I have mostly abandoned the BB. Moved my bbm onto my Infinix and enjoyed the experience.

10. Mov2 uses my brother’s old phone, a Tecno, when she has a need to communicate via phone, which is usually sparingly. She mostly uses her phone for the radio. She has several of those and promotes them into use and disuse as she wills. She has a very eclectic taste in music like my brother and I and so she enjoys his music when not using his radio.

I think that about sums up all of our devices. I remember asking my sister to skype recently and she told me she doesn’t really use Skype since moving over to the Apple side of life and I wonder if ever I will. I do not begrudge those who own those devices, just not my thing. I am however very grateful for all devices as I like to keep in touch with family and friends and I do have a rich mix of both spread all over the world. I am thus thankful for technology that enables me stay in touch with everyone and to 'see' so much more than my tiny Ibadan flat ever could.