Good morning from the Lifestyle Support Guru with some heartwarming advice on how to cheer up someone’s day – this story is especially pertinent to those of you who are advancing in years, but it is so important to feel that you have brought a little sunshine into another person’s life, I believe. A long story but bear with me – it’s one that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside…
Firstly, you need to go into a phone shop where an assistant will (eventually) come and ask if you need any help (the look on her face may imply that she’s thinking more along the lines of a zimmer frame or a mobility scooter rather than a mobile phone, but ignore this). The first thing you say is that you are looking for a new phone but that you don’t want a smartphone. This is where the first smile of the day will appear, but you ignore the fact that it is more a smile of sorrow and pity than of joy.
Next, you find you have turned into your mother as you explain in great (and unnecessary) detail why you want to change your phone (because it rings people when it’s in your handbag when you haven’t even pressed a key and those friends then ring you back to ask why you’ve just rung them, which is confusing, to say the least! And it also switches itself off, almost as if it’s sulking because you haven’t used it for at least an hour). You may notice the assistant’s smile beginning to slip a bit at this point, but again ignore this; it’s only temporary.
Then point out the phone that you’re considering – a neat little clamshell design because then keys can’t be unnecessarily pressed (and it’s cheap!). Her smile broadens as she tries to imagine herself using such an antiquated design, but she obviously recognises that different people (i.e. OLD people) have different needs. She will then say that some of their customers (by now you can almost see the speech bubble above her head with ‘OLD’ written in it!) prefer another style and she discreetly points to another phone. She will tell you that it has bigger keys and a bigger screen which ‘some people’ (i.e. OLD!) find easier to use. By now you will be feeling as if you should sign up for a nursing home straight away. On opening the phone, you find the keys are practically as big as a computer keyboard – BUT they are so easy to see and use – and the screen is almost a cinema screen! You are torn between the two phones but you eventually (with horror!) hear yourself say ‘Well, I’m not getting any younger’ and the smile spreads to fill her face because she knows she’s persuaded you to go for the more expensive one!
Finally, you go to the desk where she lovingly wraps the phone in a bright carrier bag emblazoned with the shop’s name so that every mugger within a two-mile radius will know you’ve just bought a phone – the only pleasure you will feel is that if a mugger does nick it, you know he’ll never be able to sell it for much because it is so uncool!
And you then walk out of the shop with the girl’s broad smile imprinted on your brain and the feeling that once you’re out of the door she will collapse on the floor with laughter while telling her colleagues ‘You won’t believe this but I’ve just sold the last of those phones that came in when mobiles were first invented.’
And you spend the rest of the day knowing that you’ve made someone very happy!