The One About The iPhone

I am brilliant in many things, like solving puzzles, licking stamps, memorizing lyrics and making women scream – largely for the wrong reasons. I also invented many things like the relationship life cycles, post-it pads and alphabets.

Yet, my brilliance is also marred and humbled in the presence of what most have adopted into their routine mundane life of existence; technology.

You should know that I’m not a big fan of tech gadgets, even though I sometimes imagine myself to be through forced assimilation like purchasing a playstation and most recently, an iPhone. I validate this by the fact that until very recently, my iPhone was completely stock – for 4 months -, and it puzzled everyone on why I would have an iPhone if I didn’t intend to load it with applications.

And for one reason only; because I find downloading these applications a chore. Also largely because I am lazy and I don’t know how to, and I don’t really want to know how to because if I have the time to sit down and download stuff, then it better be porn, Entourage or Gossip Girl.

Obviously there are the downsides of not having games on the phone, especially when you need to pre-occupy yourself when taking a dump. The good thing is that you won’t hog the cubicle and you will be less susceptible in developing piles or cervical cancer.

The iPhone sucks – or at least mine does.

The phone keeps restarting so often that I’m sometimes convinced it is on an eco-friendly sleep mode. It hangs more frequently than inmates on death row and the damn ‘Home’ button is faulty. If you are an iPhone user, you deserve an award for patience, a plague for putting up with this crap or you deserve a hug at least.

If you aren’t one, then let me adequately emphasize of what paramount value this ‘Home’ button is. Imagine what water is to the earth, what Michael was to the Jackson’s 5, what air is to humans, what the anus is to the gay community, what pussy is Ron Jeremy. It is universal, you cannot live without it, simply because by default, that is the only button there is – that actually has a purpose.

Without that, your iPhone is about as useful as socks would be for kids with apodia or contact lenses for Stevie Wonder.

So my phone crashed for the umpteenth time today. I stopped counting long ago, because if I celebrated each time with a candle, I would have made Madame Tussaud’s look like a MacDonald’s children's birthday party. The only problem is that I could not restart it this time.

And I tried everything; holding the soft restart buttons – which is pressing the power button with the almighty universal Home button – long enough to lose an erection while on Viagra. I tried removing and replacing the SIM card. I even said a little prayer to God.

Nothing worked. And it got worse because I would get all these calls coming in but there was no way I could answer them, or switch the phone off. And I didn’t know if they could hear me on the line, because my sentences always opened with, ‘Fucking hell’ and was punctuated with pretty much every expletive you could muster.

This bothered me enough to actually make a trip down to the Singtel store. When I got there, there were two queues at the information counter. One was for general enquiries and the other was for angry iPhone owners, who like me, got fucked over by our phone.

I can’t say I’ve been totally dissatisfied with the phone because there are a few important functions that it has dutifully served me well on, like being black in colour and having a functional alarm clock.

However, a peculiar scene started unraveling before me. There were actually more people sending in their iPhones for repair than there were actually people buying it. This is like charity shows; people generally do not give a fuck where their money is going, so long as they look good doing it. This also meant that there were other morons out there like me.

So why is it, that despite all the faults, people still continue to snap up the iPhone like Vuitton on discount? That is simply because, the iPhone is the coolest gadget to have, since the Tamagotchi.

Then it came to my turn,

Me: “My phone crashed.”
Guy: “Did you do a soft reset?”
Me: “Of course I tried it. It doesn’t work.”

He proceeded to try it anyway. Surely, I had done it correctly. Surely I had put in enough conviction to try the soft reset at least a dozen times over. Surely, I couldn’t be that much of an idiot. Could I?

Then 10 seconds later, it restarted miraculously. I don’t know how he did it, but he had such a miraculous touch, even Mother Theresa would be proud to shake his hands.

He stared at me, almost a contemptuous gaze at my incompetence. I could have done a soft reset myself, but I travelled all the way to town, walked all the way to the place – under sweltering heat and impatient traffic congestions no less – just to have a guy do something even a 7 year old autistic kid on cocaine could have done?

I really outdid myself this time.

Me: “Oh, the phone keeps resetting and my Home button is spoilt.”

Naturally I wasn’t going to make myself look like an idiot. I was going to salvage all I could, even if I had to accuse the iPhone of changing colours if I must. He eventually gave me a queue number for my phone to be serviced.

Girl: “Hi Sir, good afternoon.”
He: “My Home button is spoilt and my phone keeps restarting. Sometimes I don’t get vibrations and the ring tone periodically…”
Girl: “Don’t worry sir, I will be replacing a new set for you.”

They are REPLACING me a new set just because my button is faulty? I can't imagine what they will compensate me if the phone electrocute me. What can I say.

I love the iPhone.

Giving Excuses

Not many people realize this, but excuses are people at their creative best. They are usually forged under the stimulus of impulse and reflex replies. It is an ascribed trait that measures a person’s intelligence, like Mensa, academic merits, brain size and hair colour.

Excuses also act as a social filter, like an automatic induction into a specific caste. Quick witted people give good excuses which become acknowledge as ‘reasons’, while stupid people give dumb excuses which are received by frowns and should generally be acknowledged with a jab to the mouth.

A measure of how good your excuse is, is to always gauge it against the intensity of yelling or nagging that follows, since excuses are generally introduced to a conversation when a questioning nag erupts. Good excuses not only quell a torrential nag storm, but if you are really good, you might even get an apology.

Excuse : [noun] def:
1. an inferior or inadequate specimen of something specified
2. usually a well crafted lie
3. something people subscribe religiously to
4. by default, anything you say after doing something wrong

Excuses are staple diets in our life. They are seldom constructive and should never be confused with ‘White Lies’. Excuses are always well documented in several scenarios.

1. Being late

As much as people know that every reason behind a falter on punctuality is a blatant excuse, people still want to hear what you have to say. It’s not that they truly want to sympathize with you about missing the bus or that you got mugged along the way, but because subconsciously, they are just waiting for a dumb excuse to float by so that they can punch you.

2. Missing a deadline

This is because there are always a million things working against us when there is a deadline to meet. Like, procrastination, lethargy, complacency, X-Box and herpes. Also because people know that if they actually put in enough effort into thinking, they can come up with a valid enough reason to push back a deadline.

It’s weird because missing deadlines actually stimulates communication. Notice how no one bothers to ask how you managed to meet the deadline, but they probe incessantly about why you failed to meet one?

If you want people to know about your problems, miss a deadline. And if people like you in general, or if you have on a low enough blouse, people would generally be bothered to listen.

3. Forgot an important date

What do you do when apologies don’t cut it and a simple honest ‘I forgot’ is a considerate thought lost in the larger picture of disappointment. It’s like believing recycling paper actually saves the rainforest from the greater greed of industrialization. It’s like breaking your leg during a race and trying to valiantly complete it. It might look honourable, but let’s just keep that to the Special Olympics.

Excuses as such, have a strange pacifying merit to it. Largely because people cling desperately to hope and want to believe in the good of you, as disappointing as you may be. It doesn’t mean you won’t be yelled at to begin with, because women still believe that yelling is the best form of reminder a man can get. It’s weird they think that way because men don’t listen to begin with.

4. When you don’t want sex

The rejection of sex, how subtle it may be communicated, is always laced with a good dose of bruising to the ego. This is one time you cannot say ‘no’ and hope that your partner gets the message cleanly.

With blatant rejection, comes a parabolic host of paranoia, insecurities and a reach for that bottle of lube and stash of porn. There is never a ‘no’ that will be met without a retaliation of ‘why’. As such an excuse –well intention or not – saves the day –and erection.

Of course, there are times when excuses should never be used. The most extrusive moment being when the other party is furious, because anything you say, could say or should say is not only wrong, but is stupid.

As I said, excuses are seldom ever genuinely constructive to any situation, but that should never stop you from honing your abilities to dish out respectable excuses. Here are some guidelines on how to give a good excuse if you aren’t blessed with a quick witted mind and an equally smooth tongue.

a. Be convincing

Excuses always seem more credible when you pretend to be agitated about something. For example, if you turn up late for a meeting.

You: “Sorry. There was a traffic jam.”

That is a bad excuse. It lacks so much creativity that a spastic kid with half a nostril in Peru giving an excuse could have won a Pulitzer Prize if he was matched against you. But if you said,

You: “Fucking Chee Bye. I took a cab and I distinctively told the cab driver NOT to go by that way and he refused to listen. Fucking got caught in a jam and made me waste money.”

Now, with enough irritation – or tears -, not only would you have divert pissness, but you would have converted it to sympathy by sheer self-victimizing.

b. Exploit the elderly

Blame pushing is a paramount theme in excuses. Always make use of proven words like, ‘grandmother’ or ‘grandfather’. For added effect, throwing in conjunctive words like, ‘sick’, ‘dying’ and ‘leprosy’ usually builds a more plausible case.

Yes, it’s morally indignant but integrity and humanity are malleable clauses that can be censured at another time and place. The focal subject at hand, is to get yourself out of the situation. Remember, it’s always better when people are blaming someone else, rather then you.
You cannot imagine how many appeal letters I’ve written in mitigation for parking offences. And I think there is some automated appeal acceptance which traces for the above said key words, because you cannot imagine the bullshit I have written and gotten away with, simply by including the words, ‘sick grandmother’.

c. Keep it simple

When reasons get too complex or draggy, it becomes relegated to an excuse. The best reasons are sometimes the simplest.

When I was in primary school, I’d had this classmate who would have tons of excuses on why he didn’t complete his homework. It was usually always such an elaborate story of a series of unfortunate events that I sometimes wondered if we were in math class or at a Charles Dickens recital.

And I realized then that the longer your excuse, the dumber it becomes and the more irate the other maturates. Conversely, the abridged ones that fall along the line of, ‘I left it in school by accident’ always bode better. Think of it this way, a long erected dick looks impressive, but it's alot harder to cover up than a short one.

d. Contingency

Where all else fails, sometimes a more mature approach might work, like apologizing – and meaning it-, showing some cleavage, a lap dance or buying a diamond.

So who says there isn’t a happy ending for bribery?

The Box Of Surprise

Poca has always been a box of surprise – and remember this sentence, because I truly mean it in every sense of the word. What is passion without a little bit of pain to sweeten the joys.

It’s always been a kind of attraction between her and my balls and I say this without any erotic merits to it, so those of you unbuckling in anticipation for a vicarious gratification of this blog and a bottle of lube, you can put Sea Biscuit back.

After all, I’ve been knelt, kicked and heeled in the balls. I’ve also been unceremoniously kneed in the head, but those are events credited to accidents, because it happens to the best of us who choose not to wear helmets or crotch guards.

Then today, she gave me the biggest surprise. A whole fist full of it.

There I lay, with my bolster between my legs, casually commenting on the artistic nature of my pose, and then I don’t know if it’s how people manifest their agreement these days, but I it did not expect this, not even with my ninja quick reflexes.

She punched down on the bolster, right on the area where my balls lay in sheltered sanctuary under a useless cover of foam padding. I don’t remember what happened because I spent the next 2 minutes on the floor, in pain.

This was a punch that Mike Tyson would have been proud of. And as I crouched on the floor, my mind ran through a gamut of possibilities. Maybe there was a mosquito on the bolster? Maybe she had a cramp and her fist just happened to clench up into a punch? Maybe punching is the black in the mantra of foreplay?

It had to be so, because why else would anyone think punching someone else's balls to be totally and perfectly alright?

And when I finally caught my breath,


Me: “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT?!"

Poca: *still laughing* “I thought you wouldn’t feel it!”

Me: “YOU THREW A PUNCH AT MY BALLS AND YOU DIDN’T THINK I WOULD FEEL IT?!”

Poca: “There was a bolster!!”

As I said, she really is a box of surprise.