Life is a fickle kindness, but it's worth it for it's sweet small minded victories

Well, what a week! I think I can say, in a long-term sense, that I am in a good mood again, at last. After a spring and summer that were up and down -- well mostly down really -- the upwards trend of the last month or so as been given a certain supercharged momentum in the last week.

I have been selected for the team for the third year running, the club is coming along really nicely and my work is giving me good results -- and succeeded with some chemistry that a good colleague hadn't been able to. I've even had some nice things said about my (badminton) playing as well. These have all conspired to put me in a very good mood. However, the sweetest thing is less likely somehow -- but perhaps more small minded.

As with most of the rest of the western world, I have a mobile phone. I use said instrument to keep in touch with pretty much everyone I meet and talk to, and needless to say it is a lot easier to enjoy one's existence in the current climate with one. However, being less than flushed (one has to bear such ignominy as a postgraduate student, it's part of the romance of one's position) I wanted a 'more affordable' deal. I signed up with a telephone company that is neither 2F, nor 4H, but the one in between. To cut a long story short on upgrading to an 18 month contract after a year, I did not get the deal I was told I would and so was short changed. They had not responded to my requests and so when the time came for the contract to end, I cancelled the DD. They were none too pleased, thinking I had short-changed them by £33.50. The fact that they were indebted to me by five times this amount had not entered their heads. I received a number of threatening letters, or rather notices, from some ghastly debt collection agency -- they were not civilised enough to write, merely to demand, and did so in a rather unsettling way. However, as my "provider" was at last listening I explained the situation to them, again, and instead of tearing the shirt off my back, kicking me out of my flat and throwing me in prison as they had threatened to do (nominally), they have sent me a cheque covering (some) of what they owe me.

This in itself seems reasonably unremarkable, however almost the same thing happened, and at the same time, with the telephone company I had hoped would take over -- the one that is not yellow or red, but is apparently the future. Another company were supposed to supply the hardware but did not. With the order cancelled, I promptly went elsewhere, however the bright futuristic telephone company were not told of this and employed the same ghastly debt collection agency as above to extract £171.50 from me by the same foul and uncivilised means. Needless to say, they too failed miserably and are now paying me money --something else they have in common with their grand-child competitors. And I should think so too. Moral of the story, don't mess with the Fursey. Especially if you're crap at what he's paid you to do.