A couple of months ago I was all booked up to get Sky TV, but when the man came round he said my phone socket was too far from the television (I only have one operational and it's up in my office, a long way from my lounge) and that if I wanted to get Sky I would have to pay BT to come round and put in an additional socket. I told the lady who confirmed this on the phone that if that was the case then I wouldn't bother getting Sky TV, thank you very much. I suspected that if I did this she would relent and say "OK, we'll pay for the socket," but she didn't. "She's just playing hard to get," I thought at the time. After all when my Sky box had broken down at my last flat and I rang to say that I didn't want to have sky TV any more the man on the phone seemed to be falling over himself to get me to reconsider - "We'll come over and fix it for free," he said.
"It's OK, I don't really watch TV enough to justify the expense."
"But what will your wife and kids think if they can't see Sky TV any more?" he desperately pleaded. He seemed to be making several assumptions about my sexuality, fecundity and ability to convince a woman to stay with me forever - only one of which was correct. I considered saying, "They all got killed in a car crash last week. That's one of the reasons I don't feel I need your service any more." But instead I said, "Well I don't have a wife or any children so I'll doubt they will mind."
His final gambit over, he made a crestfallen, "Oh!" and conceeded defeat.
Now you might think, "Why do you want Sky TV now when you didn't want it then? You are still gay, you still haven't found a woman who will spend the rest of her life with you, admittedly you are still fecund, but what use is that given your sexuality and marital status?"
And I would say, "It was the sexuality bit that he got correct and in those days they didn't have Sky Plus which would revolutionise my viewing habits, especially given I am not out most evenings working so miss loads of stuff."
You might think, "Have you heard of video recorders and how are you reading our minds?"
And I'd say, "Shut up. I need Sky TV all right and that's an end of it. And I use a special electronic device I have invented that can hear your thoughts."
Now I know Sky are always wanting new customers and will give incentives to get you in, because they make all their money on the contracts anyway, so I assumed that at some point in the next few weeks someone else would ring me up and aske why I had cancelled my order and say, "What about if we give you another four months free telly?"
And I'd have said, "Well OK, in that case I will."
It was a stand off. A real life game of poker and I was not going to be bluffed.
But they still haven't got back to me, so today I rang up BT to ask them to put an extra box in for me so that I can then ring Sky and get them to put in my magic telly with a thousand stations full of crap. See I am getting my life sorted out and getting motivated - admittedly into doing something that will waste more of my valuable time, but it's the principle that is important.
The woman from BT said, "We can come and do that on Friday."
"Oh I am busy Friday," I told her, "What's the next window?"
"October the 3rd!"
"Sorry?"
"The next appointment we've got is October 3rd."
"So wait, you can come round in four days or in a month?"
"Yes, October 3rd. Morning or afternoon?"
I was glad I at least had a choice about that.
Either all BT engineers take the last three weeks of September off or there is only one engineer and he can only move very slowly, like a snail or they book ahead a long way, but keep one day free for emergencies. It seemed a very rum state of affairs, but I booked in the man anyway. So as long as I book in a Sky man for that afternoon and as long as they can't only do the 2nd October or the 23rd November, I should be watching
Diagnosis Murder at any time of the day I want. That's a bad example, as that's on at a time that I can actually see, but you get my point.
