Long Day – 3rd Jan 18

I had been waiting since before Christmas to travel to Merrylands, a suburb in Western Sydney that’s around three and a half miles from where I live in Wentworthville.  I had found out a couple weeks prior that my Samsung Galaxy 10.5″ tablet had been fixed; it needed a replacement battery.  There’s more to this story which I will eventually get to.

So two weeks of heat waves pass along with Christmas and New years, and finally a day comes when I can finally go out as the temps are predicted to be mid 20s Celsius. I’m very prone to heat stroke, in my younger years, it only affected my head, but in more recent years, it also affects my internal organs, and worst of all, my heart, so I don’t dare go out when the temp is 30 degrees C or above (86 degrees Fahrenheit).  Frustrating in summer when Australian summers can easily range well into the mid 40s (C) at times.

So for the past week I prayed that the forecast remained accurate and I could go out today, and do the one hour drive to Merrylands (on a mobility scooter, which has a set speed limit).

As well as my tablet, I wanted to stop in a nearby chemist.  For the past two – three weeks, the fingers of my right hand started to flare up in pain.  The doctor had suggested I take panadol-osteo but I’m not a big fan of tablets and I had a theory.  I have osteo-arthritis in my knees and the pain felt different to what was going on in my fingers.  So another idea came to me.  I can only sleep on my right hand side as every time I turn to my left side, I cause more pressure to my heart and stomach and it triggers a severe case of nausea, and part of my posture when I sleep is by tucking my arm under me, using my elbow as a support and my right shoulder as a cushion.  I solved the problem of the crick in my neck caused by this sleeping posture, but along with age, problems arise in other areas, and I suspect that now after so many years of sleeping like this, I’m slowing down the blood supply to my right hand.  It doesn’t help that it’s also my computer mouse hand so where the pressure spots are in the wrist are also causing nerve issues and the combination of both, I believe, is what’s causing the pain in my fingers.  To test this theory, I’m re-training myself to not sleep on my arm, but after doing this for nearly five decades, it’s kind of hard to stop bad habits, but it’s something I’m continually working on.  In the meantime, I’ve been massaging my hand and have been using heat cream, not just on my fingers but along the arm and elbow where the key pressure points are to try to stimulate blood flow.  I’ve noticed that by massaging my fingers and applying pressure to them, it eases the pain, so had decided to look and see if I could find a pressure glove for my fingers.  The pharmacist mentioned they do exist, but there wasn’t one currently in the chemist, however if I was willing to pay the cost for one, they would happily order it in.  I had estimated a pressure glove to be somewhere around the $20 – $30 so it wasn’t really a surprise that the glove I needed cost me $40.  I had some money saved in my credit card for emergency bills or direct debits, so resigned to being a little bit poorer, but worth it if my theory pays off and this glove works.  Having paid for the glove, I should expect a call over the next day or so to collect it from the chemist, I can hardly wait!  I miss having the full use of my right hand!

After leaving the chemist, I headed towards the nearby Woolworths.  I had put aside $50 for my tablet, the price the owner of the business and I agreed upon to pay for the cost of the tablet (long story, this is coming up).  By the time I arrived at Woolworths, a couple of blocks from the chemist, I had started to feel dizzy.  Ignoring it, I withdrew the money before shakes began.  Then I remembered, I had taken my meds, and my blood sugar reading was at 6.9, and this was well over an hour earlier.  I had a pear, but apparently that wasn’t enough.  So headed off to red rooster for breakfast and bought one of their ripper deals (see image below) with a side of a small potato & gravy.  Got through the gravy and small chips, but only got a couple of bites of the chicken roll before I decided I couldn’t eat anymore.  This was a surprise, in the past I could eat all this and would have to talk myself out of buying more food.  I guess self training in regards to appetite control, plus having three weeks of runs caused by antibiotics plus struggling with loss of appetite due to extremely hot days has shrunk my stomach more than I realised.  So bagged the remainder of the roll to have later in the day.

Finally, with dizzy spell, nausea and shakes under control and me feeling relative human again, I continued my hour long journey to Merrylands.

An hour later, I finally arrive at the phone repair shop and here’s where the rather polite argument begins which I’ll explain now.  When I first dropped off my dead tablet, I didn’t hold much hope for it, but asked if they could call me and give me an update if anything could be done.  I left my name and number and the guy said he’d call me in a couple days with an answer.  I said that would be fine.

A couple days pass, then a week, after about 2 weeks, I decided to call to find out what’s happening, only to realise I don’t have their number.  No matter I figured, in a couple more weeks I’ll be driving into Merrylands again to attend a club at the library, I can check on it then.  (Due to the distance to where I live, I usually only drive into Merrylands once a month to attend a board games club at the local library, I tend to use that day to tend to any other business in Merrylands.)  A couple more weeks pass and I head into Merrylands to go to the library.  On the way past, I notice the shop closed.  I didn’t think much of it, they could be closed for lunch I figured so continued on to the library.  On the way home a couple hours later, still in business hours, i drove past again, the shop was still closed.  Oh well, maybe they closed up early, I thought.

Another month passes, this time I leave earlier to try to catch the shop open, but to no avail.  This happened a couple more times.  By now I was getting panicky.  Months had passed, not one call from the shop, and it always appeared closed every time I drove past.  I finally did get hold of a business number, but every time I rang, there was no answer.  By this time, I was getting rather anxious over the whole situation so I started doing some research.  I called up the council to track down who this business pays rent to.  Considering it’s in a shopping mall, I figured the owner of the business didn’t own the property outright.  I guessed right and was given the number of the real estate agent who they pay their rent too. I went in person to complain to the real estate questioning the agency to see if this business was dodgy.  The lady there informed me that they pay their rent on time, but the owner was off work at that time due to personal injury.  Forgiveable then.  That would explain why the owner didn’t answer his phone, but it didn’t explain why every time I went to the shop (be it once a month), they were always closed during business hours.  There was no signage stating they were only open certain days, and the nearby shopkeepers confirmed that every day that I’m not there, they happen to be open.  By now, I was beginning to take this personally.  Exasperated, I gave up, but by the off chance, a month later, close to midnight, I called the number again, not expecting it to be answered.  I almost fainted when there was an answer, so I told the guy the full story, how every time I went, the business was closed, he said it shouldn’t have been, and I commented that it definitely was.  I explained I use a mobility scooter to get around, it takes me an hour to drive there, so was pretty upset that I kept missing them and they never called me back about the tablet like they promised.

The owner, infuriated, called up the business to find out what was happening.  They explained to him that they fixed my tablet and it’s waiting for me to collect it.  This calmed me down a bit, so I then texted back, asking for the price and asking if I could get a discount from all the anxiety they caused me.  When he rang the shop, they said the price would be $80, the owner insisted on a discount as I wasn’t happy with their service (or lack thereof), and the guy he spoke to said the lowest he could go was $50.

Fast forward to today, and I go in to collect my tablet and I hand them a $50 bill explaining what the owner said.  I get two young guys with blank looks on their face.  They tried to explain to me that the cost of fixing my tablet was $140.  I disagreed, and repeated the phone conversation insisting that the owner said I only owed $50.  They refused to acknowledge the money and kept saying it can’t be as the full price was $140.  I repeated, that wasn’t what was told to me.  So then they asked, how much was the full price mentioned? I explained the full price mentioned was $80.  “Feel free to call up the owner if you don’t believe me, he can repeat the conversation to you.” They gave in and accepted my $50 after that. Then I mentioned they were hard people to track down considering I had to go through the local council AND the real estate agent.  They asked me why did I feel the need to do that? I said because every time I came they were closed, I was beginning to feel scammed.  The guy said that’s why the owner told them off recently because I went to such great lengths to contact them, I pissed off the owner.  Hey, not my fault their work practices are shoddy, and I’m not going to apologise for my research skills.  You dodge me, I’m going to track you down!

Happy that I retrieved my tablet, I did ask them if they had a similar monitor for another Samsung before I thought better of it and said never mind, it’s too expensive anyway.  Left that store and headed to a nearby phone repair shop.  I knew it existed because every time I tried to google the shop in the arcade, I kept getting this other shop in a nearby arcade, so I knew I couldn’t fail with this guy as google kept finding him.  I firstly apologised for giving him a hard time re my Samsung (I rang him a couple times to confirm he wasn’t the shop I was looking for).  Then I explained about how I got two of the same tablets is that when I wanted ONE, Telstra (a super giant of phone companies here in Australia) stuffed up and sent me two, so I decided to keep both.  The monitor on my 2nd Samsung had died and I wanted to know what cost he could offer me to fix it.  (I was kind of hoping he’d prove me wrong, I had already researched the monitor for this model, and they averaged between $400 – $500 JUST to buy it online, not including the service of replacing the old monitor.  So the guy goes and checks and warns me it’s VERY expensive.  I was afraid of that, in my research, I’d discovered they don’t make the Samsung Galaxy 10.5″ inch tablet anymore, so parts for it have skyrocketed in price.  I dreaded what was coming.  “The best offer I can do for you is $420.” I couldn’t argue with that, my research told me with that offer I was actually saving money if that included him servicing the tablet for me.  So then we discussed payment. Finally he agreed with letting me pay off the tablet, a minimum of $50 a fortnight (every 2 weeks), more if I can afford it, and I’m happy for him to hold my tablet hostage till the amount was paid in full.

Future plans solved, all this arguing (with the first shop) and debating over price & payment (with the 2nd shop) left me hungry again.  But with my stomach still feeling dodgy because of my meds, I didn’t want anything heavy, maybe just a salad.

So I headed into nearby Stocklands Mall (and if you don’t live nearby, it’s hard to imagine this place, it has every shop of any importance in this mall, you could live in the area and never have to travel to another suburb EVER because everything you need is in this mall, that’s how amazing it is)

After finding somewhere to plug my scooter in and charge her [I’d nicknamed my mobility scooter “Vespa”] (as I’d forgotten to charge her the night before and was in no mood to push her all the way home), I then looked around for a coffee shop and came across an ideal little one right next to Woolworths.  So after some thought, deciding what would be safe to have that wouldn’t upset my stomach any further, I ordered a chai latte with skim milk and a smoked salmon salad, minus the onions, capers and carrots.

Still not feeling 100%, as wonderful as this salad was, I ended up taking about a third of it  home.

After lunch, I headed off to Best & Less.  I had made a mental note before leaving to buy some undies as mine were all showing their age.  With my large size, and wearing normally anywhere between sizes 28 – 32 depending on the material, I assumed I’d have to pay at least $5 per pair (my local Chinese shop that used to sell 5 pairs for $10 had closed down, so was worried as to where I could find something just as cheap).

I found Best & Less, and on the way in, I came across a couple of adorable tops (designed for babies, obviously) that I thought would look adorable on my girls and they only cost $3 each!  So I picked up a size 00 for Cleo and a size 0000 for Milly not realising she’d gained more weight since I last bought clothes for her and should have got her a size 000.  No matter, it fits her.. JUST.  Anyway, found my undies and surprise, surprise, they FIT despite being labelled as size 22 – 24!!!  I managed to buy five pairs for $2 a piece!  Everyone keeps telling me I’ve lost weight, I still don’t believe it, but I AM grateful that my butt fits in this size at B&L as that was the biggest size they had.

Necessary shopping done, I started to leave, but before I did, I couldn’t resist taking a pic of this intriguing decoration in the middle of the store that went for 3 levels, all the way from the roof right down to the grown floor.  There are breaks in the middle levels where the decoration can go through the floor (of course these breaks are safely fenced, so people can look down to lower levels without falling through.  This was just a small portion of the decoration, but you get the gist..

Anyway, finally made it home.  Dinner was of course the leftovers I brought home, the half roll and half salad; saved me cooking. I tried on the girls tops, and they look adorable in it, see for yourself (Goldie, the puss, couldn’t resist photo bombing the last pic).

All in all, a long day and my right hand was throbbing in pain for a couple of hours afterwards.  I can hardly wait till I get that pressure glove.

So that’s the highlight for this week.  Stuck home now till the weekend with another forecast heatwave on its way.