How can I be paranoid if I'm right?

I have come to the conclusion that I am cursed!

My closest friends think that I am paranoid, until I reel off the list of things that go wrong - and its always on expensive items, stuff that's more than about £100.


At the beginning of the year, there was the brand new washer dryer I bought, which didn't even make it through its first 'wash me before use' cycle before failing, which meant registering it and calling an engineer on the very first day of having it. Two engineers and two weeks later, things were finally fixed and I didn't have to use Mum's Laundry Service any more.

Since then, I have been avoiding expensive stuff, until a few weeks ago when I bought a Panasonic EX75 DVD/HDD Recorder. I figured that, since it was Panasonic, then it should be okay buying it from ASDA. Wrong! The next day the EPG fell over (black screen with flashes of green and not responding to the remote) and I had to take it back. Got my money back rather than having to faff about with another one.

Last month, after procrastinating for the best part of a year, I finally made the decision to buy a new computer, and opted to buy from Mesh Computers on the grounds that you got more for your money and they were winning plenty PC Pro awards.

All of the reviews I was reading about the place were putting me off, but I have reached a point where I really need a computer and, as much as I would have liked it, I can't afford the price of a Vadim machine, while the Dell XPS 700 was more expensive than the Mesh but with a lower spec. I should have listened to that little nagging doubt I had.

First, I tried to purchase online, entered my details and it fell over on confirmation of payment. So I emailed them to ask for confirmation. The next day, I got a call, but not in response to my mail!

They had seen the quote I had saved and wanted to offer me a discounted delivery price. When I told them about the online order, they had no record of it, and no record of the deposit paid on my card. An ideal opportunity, you might think, to pull out of ordering the machine and save myself some grief. That little nagging doubt was back, but I ignored it and placed the order over the phone. The guy took my card details and organised for the credit to be set up.

The credit was all organised in a matter of days (as you might cynically expect), and it was now just a case of waiting for a delivery date which, according to their site, would be 16 September.

At first, I was nervous about the order, one of my mates was calling me Mr Doom and Gloom for expecting something to go wrong, which annoyed me enough to make me snap at him. When you consistently have bad experiences with expensive orders, its not surprising that you start to expect something to go wrong. So when someone turns round and takes the piss out of you and tells you its all in your head, the urge to snap at them is a hard one to resist.

Anyway, I digress!

This past week, I have started to feel excited at getting a new computer, which in my world, is normally an indicator that I am about to be disappointed!

On Wednesday, Mesh called me to say that they had lost my credit card details, so they needed to take them again (bearing in mind they had already been lost via the net and taken over the phone). Luckily, the same guy has been calling every time, so it felt at the time that despite the situation, I could trust that it was a Mesh employee on the phone (though after seeing The Real Hustlers yesterday, I'm not sure I would do it again).

Okay, minor hiccough, I thought. Since the guy told me that the machine was built and ready to go, I started to look forward to getting it again, and have been looking around for software to buy for it (I really want to get hold of Maxon's Cinema 4D as I would love to get into the 3D modelling and animation).

At 18:00 tonight, I get a phone call from Mesh. There is a little problem with my machine and it has failed the QA checks. Can they deliver next Tuesday instead?

Ha! Like I didn't see that one coming!!

I don't know whether to be angry or grateful. On the downside, its starting to fulfill my expectations, while on the upside, they are at least making sure that they send me something that will not be faulty. I guess its this latter angle that is stopping me getting too annoyed about it, as it also gives me some extra time to make some suitable space in the flat. I really need to take my stuff to a car boot sale and foist it off onto someone else...or maybe ebay it...

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