Sarcasm

Recently, while completing a market research questionnaire, I was asked to describe how a certain mobile phone company could meet my needs as a consumer. The task was to describe my perfect purchase in the form of a short story. As this was a slightly more imaginative question than most market researchers ask, I decided to give it my fullest attention.

I opened the packaging, which was minimal, and discovered, in order for the company to reduce its carbon footprint, there was no charger. Despite my previous handset being made by the same manufacturer, I was disappointed to discover that my old charger did not fit it. This caused me to jump into my 4x4 (there's no public transport where I live) and drive all the way into town to buy a brand new one. Which came in a whole new load of packaging. I was also shocked to note that the new charger cost nearly as much as a new phone.

When I got home however, I installed the software (which I was able to simply download from the phone manufacturer's website) on to my PC and was really pleased because I did not have to install any unnecessary drivers which would enable me to use my mobile handset as a modem (let's face it, that would be really pointless). The handset and PC "shook hands" straight away and transferring information between the two units was a dream. In fact, the PC and phone communicated straight away on every subsequent occasion I plugged it in. This was fantastic because it had never happened before with any other handset manufacturer.

I looked at my phone, which was sleek and durable, and smiled because I knew from the construction that it would last a really long time and I would probably get loads of girls if they saw I owned one. Just then, the phone rang - it was the manufacturer who realized that leaving the charger out of the box may appear to be a cynical marketing ploy, milking the green concept for all it's worth. They offered to refund the money I had spent on the new charger and make a huge donation to the most worthwhile charity in the world.

As I had managed to transfer all my music files to the new phone, in all formats - including those pesky iTunes ones and the DRM *.WMA ones, I sat back in my chair and listened to some songs whilst simultaneously saving some Microsfoft Word document files to the phone, ready to email to my publisher whilst on the train to my meeting.

Just as I finished completing the whole quick and easy transfer, a news bulletin flashed up on the screen of my handset (thanks to my always on 3G). It announced that George Bush had been using the same handset as mine and the low-level radiation had cured his insanity.