Broken phone gave me right dose of technophobia!

A beauty appointment went awry for our columnist when her phone finally broke beyond repair ... thank heavens for St Brigid bringing some much-needed relaxation – a chance for a shopping trip to the big city!

• WAS mercury in retrograde or was there a full moon or what this week because I’ve had an annoying few days, let me tell you.

Everything I touched I broke, and that awful damp, humid weather wasn’t helping things one bit. Bring back those crisp days and blue skies please! Frustration and drama peaked when I broke my phone.

It happened as I was walking into a beauty treatment that was meant to promote relaxation and calm. Ironic or what?

• Anyway, anyone who knows me will know that I’m not a fan of technology. It’s mainly because I detest reading manuals and am a little bit lazy. If I won the lotto, the first thing I’d invest in is an IT assistant ... to help me figure out the oven timer for starters.

• My phone screen has been a wee bit smashed in for months, but I’ve just ignored it as the thoughts of having to get a new phone, transfer data etc was more than enough for me to decide ‘era it’s fine.’

Even when I dropped it on a path last Monday morning and it took another good knock, making it hard to see anything, I was still remaining stoic. Sure it’s grand! At least it was for around five minutes, until it stopped working, and I started whimpering and rocking in a corner.

• The purchase of a phone was obviously a little painful on my pocket, but it was everything else that it involved that nearly pushed me over the edge despite the kind phone shop worker doing everything he could to help. He pretty much set the entire phone up for me, all I had to do was log back into my various apps and accounts.

• That was the problem. Some of these accounts hadn’t been logged out of in years – how was I supposed to remember the passwords? To make matters worse, lots of them were linked to email accounts that were no longer functional.

That meant the new passwords were being sent to emails I could no longer access and it all snowballed into a huge headache (and I mentioned how humid it was, right?).

• At one point I reconciled myself with the idea of never having a phone again, and wondered if a homing pigeon might be an option. Between the jigs and the reels, I was around 36 hours without my phone and I’d love to say it was liberating but it was in fact ... unnerving, for both me and the phone shop guy who I’d say considered closing the business and changing his identity when he saw me coming for the fifth time!

• To be fair, I probably was a bit more productive as I wasn’t rewarding myself with any Instagram breaks, but I did feel a bit unhinged so couldn’t really apply myself to any major tasks. What if a new trend was emerging online that I was going to miss out on? What if there was some new air fryer recipe that I wouldn’t hear about?

• All the ‘what ifs’ were whirling around my brain. I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was losing my mind! When I got my phone back and finally got logged in, I prepared myself for a deluge of messages but it turns out I had overestimated my popularity and importance. The wheels of life had kept on turning just grand without me – so let that be a lesson to us all.

• I’m still glad to be reconnected, though, and I’ve also invested in a diary so I can write down all my passwords to save myself the head melt if this ever happens again, which makes me officially ‘old.’

• The bank holiday was lovely, wasn’t it? All power to St Brigid. Myself and my smallie took a morning off and went to the ‘big smoke’ – Cork, girl!

Emma and her daughter made the most of the bank holiday by making a trip to Cork city. (Photo: Shutterstock)

• When I’m embedded in my day-to-day rural life, I’m always convinced that I’m a simple soul who wants for nothing and who eschews commercialism. Then I hit the shops and I’m like ‘Ooh! I want that! And that! And what’s that ... I want it!’

• Now, everything that I liked was around €347, which wasn’t very helpful as I have exactly €47 in my bank account, so that kept me on the straight and narrow. I saw a divine pair of cargo pants (think All Saints with a 2024 twist), exactly like something I’d saved on one of my Pinterest boards. They were €347 too. I’ve started saving.

• Smallie of course wanted to go to Penneys, where fortunately nothing is €347. I hadn’t been there in an age and having seen a few episodes of RTÉ’s Inside Penneys I was a bit intrigued. We were on the hunt for a particular lip balm (big business for seven-year-olds right now). The staff, I have to say, were unbelievably nice and were hunting upstairs, downstairs (in my ladies chambers) until they tracked it down for us.

• She also needed a new pair of runners. I’d usually shop local but as we were out and about I said we’d get sorted. She obviously takes after me as she went straight for a pair that cost €135. Dear god. I deserve an Oscar but let’s just say they weren’t the pair that came home with us.

• Finally for this week’s TV tips: I had huge hopes for True Detective on Now. What an enormous letdown. It’s turning into a huge yawn. Don’t bother with it! And I’m only raging that I didn’t watch The Traitors on BBC. That one totally passed me by and by all accounts was the show of the year. Cheers for the heads up, lads!

• Room to Improve is over already which is a pity, although I’d say my husband is relieved as I’m not coming up with ideas for extensions and attic conversions on a Sunday night.

And I have to say, despite my remonstrations a few weeks back, I’m getting into Dancing With The Stars. We’re team Eileen all the way. We’ll be broke from all the voting but we want to at least get her to the semi-final ... C’mon Eileen (too-ra-loo-ra, too-ra-loo-rye-ay!)