WE’RE ALL FANCY and kitted out with smartphones now, paying bills so we can get our DATA and our MINUTES and not have to worry about missing one thing.
But most of us started out our mobile phone lives ‘on credit’, feeding the codes into our Nokia 3310s and Motorola Razrs.
We understand that the process has changed, and many people have made the big switch to bill pay, but these experiences will still chill the heart of anyone who has ever been on credit.
The slips look like receipts
If you don’t put the credit on your phone straight away after purchasing it in a shop, you’ll probably mistake the slip for a rubbishy old receipt and throw it away.
€20 down the drain. I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s GRAND.
Getting the code right was an insanely difficult task
This was before they called the code back to you after you entered it. Before, you just blindly stabbed the numbers into the phone and hoped to God it was correct.
“Sorry, the code you have entered is incorrect.” DAARRRGH.
Pathetic Call Mes
No credit? Just send a close friend or relative a Call Me, which will notify them that you’re completely stuck with no money and no way of contacting anyone (and you probably need a lift home).
There are few things more dehumanising than sending a Call Me.
Free texts/data running out
Being on credit isn’t bothersome at all until the day you receive a text message that goes something like this:
Your free texts are running out. Don’t forget to top up by €20 to activate them for another month. But until then, you’re HELPLESS. You can’t text ANYONE. You may as well just DIE. LOLOLOLOL!
Something like that, alright.
A tenner is never enough
It always seems as if a tenner is more than enough to tide you over. It’s just resting in the phone anyway, since you haven’t made any calls or sent many texts at all.
Then you open one email, and realise you’ve managed to carelessly toss away €5.
The dread of realising you have less than a euro left
And you’re after receiving the aforementioned “Your free texts are GONE MWAHAHAHA” message. And there’s no WiFi. And you definitely won’t be getting to the shops until this evening at least. And then this happens:
This must be what it’s like to be completely cut off from human contact, surely. Why do I even have this useless thing?
