So I put an ad into the Swedish buy and sell site, called Blocket. You see I bought a mobile phone about 6 months ago, and it turned out to be the worse phone in the universe. The Samsung Ultra 600 – a right proper piece of shit.
Anyhoo, after a few hours I got a mail from a gentleman who was interested. He haggled a bit over mail and he seemed satisfied with the new price and said he would come over tomight and pick it up.
So I came home, preparing to sell the thing, and suddenly got a bad feeling. I would be home with H9 and this strange guy I had never even talked to over the phone would come by, possibly bringing large friends with him. And I knew nothing about the dude. Nothing at all.
So I started to worry. And then I started to panic. And then I went to the hard American neighbour to fix some muscle, but he wasn’t home. And then I decided that H9 and I would sit in the bedroom, lock the doors, turn the lights off, open the balcony as an escape route and hope that the big bad telephone shopper would come by, ring the bell and then go away.
So we sat there, in slight paranoia, for 10 minutes until I checked my mail and discovered the following message from the mystery buyer:
“Nah, I talked to my brother and he said that this was a shit phone, so I won’t be coming to get it. Sorry.”
So I turned on the lights, feeling a bit silly, and vowed to remember 2 things:
1) Never invite strangers home, unless you want to shag them, and
2) Don’t ever ever get a phone that isn’t a Nokia
And Sunday is probably the time to do another Strange Shores carnival. If anybody can be arsed.
/ paddy
Paddy K 
About your two things:
1. Sounds sensible
2. But what about SonyEricsson or even a shiny iPhone?
Idiot! You could have been in your room with full light without him seeing it! The balcony was to much!
Errata:
“2) Don’t ever ever get a phone that isn’t – an Iphone-“
Ahhh, iPhone, I want one so bad. Unfortunately the economic crisis in Ireland is so bad we’ll probably be back to signal fires and mail delivered on donkeys soon.
maybe Mac could produce a low-tech alternative for us, like an iBongo-drum
the worse phone in the universe –> A worse phone THAN the universe
techrisk: SonyEricsson is the work of the devil. They bite. iPhone…well, we’ll see.
H: Yes, I’m an idiot. Soon I will dig an escape tunnel in the floor, just in case.
029: Yes, YES, enough with the iPhone already!
DrDan: What about an irish rip-off of the iPhone, called the eirPhone?
Martin: Still scratching my head at this one…
Nokia rocks!
Unlike my bad self, whose turn it is to do the Strange Shores – right? Or…? I’ll have to send out smoke signals and get in some links this week… Unless we can get someone else who wants to do it…
Great story! When the intertubes intersect with real life… I’ve been through such episodes myself.
Wow, I had a Nokia for a couple of weeks and hated it running right back to my beloved Ericsson. Now that iphones made their way to the rural mountains of Vermont, US, I am tempted.
The Strange Shores Blog Carnival is now published – and you of course are mentioned first! Please mention it in a post and ask your readers to go here: http://ladyfi.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/strange-shores-edition-number-heck-whos-counting/
Thanks all for comments. Forgive lack of witty reply.
Oh, come off it, Paddy K!
Do you honestly, for one minute, think that somebody is gonna’ go to all the trouble of replying to a Blocket-ad about a shit mobile phone and then haggle over the price in order to get the opportunity to spend a few years in jail by bringing some huge fellas with him and visit somebody he hasn’t even heard of before, and bears no grudges against, in order to get an opportunity to whack the guy over the head with the help of his huge fellas and… yeah, then what?! Empty the apartment?! As if no one would notice?! Like, you know, neighbours?! Maybe even Americans with muscles?!
Hey, get with it, mate! That’s not the way these guys operate. Not at all. They don’t voluntarily get themselves jail sentences for nothing, because also remember that even if all your neighbours were out of town that day, you would still be able to id the dude and his hugh fellas. If, that is, they didn’t kill you. But for WHAT?!
Here is a good set of questions to ask yourself when you think you’re being threatened, namely the five W:s:
Who? What? When? Where? And, most important, why?!
If you can’t answer *at least* who will do what and why, there is a 99% chance you’re under no threat at all.
Next time, sell your mobile without any shakes whatsoever!
All the best,
Bellis
(Shown to this blogg by Rolf Strömgren, by the way)
Bellis: To answer your first question: yes, thugs are stupid. And who the hell gets jail time in Sweden? Nobody, that’s who. Plus my kid was home, so I was worried. Maybe shouldn’t have been, but I was.
The next time I sell my mobile, I meet them in town. I don’t want burly young men I don’t know calling by to do cash deals. Bad idea.
[…] I shortly encountered problem one – the phone proved to be a lump of shit. It had to be sold for a fistful of magic beans and I had to keep paying it off for the remainder of the 18 months. I bought another phone, a […]