My love affair with the iPad lasted only a few days before it all went horribly wrong. This is tragic, because I overcame several major planks of my obsessive compulsive disorder and conquered some of my most rampant technological demons in order to walk into that Vodafone shop and say the words: ‘Can I have one of those iPad thingys, please?’
‘iPad 2, or iPad 3?’ said the red-shirted assistant.
Oh, the horror. I didn’t know there was more than one model available at any given time. I had blithely assumed that 3 usurped 2. If it was a choice, lord only knew which one I wanted. I stood there mutely.
‘Do you want the new one?’ said the red shirt, already losing interest and starting to fiddle with his smart phone.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ I said. ‘The new one. Whatever’s the latest. Or, wait, maybe I should get the one that’s smallest. Is one smaller than the other?’
The red shirt looked at me like I was frightening away the proper customers — men with floppy hair wearing Converse trainers and carrying satchels.
I hadn’t felt this out of place since I walked into Woolworths aged ten, with my dad, and tried to buy a cassette tape of Hello, I Must Be Going!
‘Can I have Phil Collins’s new record, please?’ I seem to remember innocently incanting, as my father stood behind me looking at his watch and reminding me I was going to be late for my tennis lesson.
‘Do you mean…’ said the spiky-haired assistant, pausing for scorn, ‘his latest album?’
The same look scorched into me now. But eventually the red shirt called Dan went out the back to get me an iPad 3 and before long the shiny black screen was making little clucking sounds.
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