Tim lei non è abilitato ad effettuare questa chiamata
The ‘kind’ Italian woman on the other end of the phone is telling me…
Um… ‘’I think you’ll find I am’’ I shout back.
“Its a recorded message Befanina”, someone at Uni kindly points out!
I get terribly frustrated when I cant use my phone. I feel blocked. Which becomes the ‘operative’ word within a couple of hours (you’ll see)
Oh well, I go back to class and just assume the networks down or something!?
So when it comes to 6pm or 18.00 as they like to call it in Italy. Sorry to divert but I must warn you that this ‘24 hour clock’ usage can befuddle:
Once I mistook 15.00 for 17.00! I just caught the the ‘qui’ of ‘quindici’ down the crackly phone line, which really is no excuse as the number five is cinque, but in my head it was a perfect excuse AS I TURNED UP 2 HOURS LATE FOR MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE INTERNATIONAL CASTING DIRECTOR AT CINECITTA… ‘lost in translation’!
SMARRIMENTO
Anyway back to today: So I casually mention to Betta (my faux Mum) who only topped up my phone with 30 euros yesterday (YES, yes, I really do have it Kushty!) that I can’t work out why my phone isnt working?
She can’t either!
So the technologically inferior women call up the superior tecnico man (faux Daddy) to find out how to get faux baby’s phone working. Its not even allowing me to call 4916 to find out how much credit Ive got! I start to wonder if I had been a bit textually abusive in the past few days and have rinsed my credito dry.
Lamberto (faux Daddy) suggests we call 119. A freehelpline. I had Betta call them as I was feeling a bit linguistically incapace from a technical viewpoint and just wanted to get it sorted as quickly as poss. Im not even able to receive calls and who knows what hollywood director might be trying to get through to me?!
So Betta has a little chat with Mr TIM, Andrea. And Andrea says that my phone was blocked this morning due to ‘smarrimento’ … I havent come across that term before so I just nod-along frantically as Betta re-iterrates. Apparently ‘someone’ had called this morning and blocked the phone, reporting it stolen (smarrimento means a phone-theft!)
My phone hadnt been stolen though – I have it right here, in my hand! She tells them there has been some mistake and asks them to kindly unblock it. Andrea asks for my name:
B.E.F.A.N.I.N.A (its not difficult!)
‘Im sorry that’s not the name we have of the ‘intestato’’ Andrea really is throwing a lot of new terms at me…
I can feel my heart skip a beat and the brain synapses fuse together as it all clicks in. Oh….I suddenly remember that a couple of weeks ago I received a mysterious phone call from a woman at ‘TIM’ asking me if I was my ex boyfriend ‘Edward Scissor-Hands’. I said ‘nooooo’ cringing at the very thought of him and his weirdness, and then she hung up – just like that.
I dumped ‘Edward Scissor-Hands’ (due to bona fide reasoning) and have not spoken to him for the past 6 months; including ignoring his one attempt to contact me via email; I even stopped visiting my family who live close-by to where he works to evade an akward meeting or better still getting my face kicked in my his looney mother, who kicked me out of the house for not going to dinner with them once and on another occasion force fed me pasta!! I’ll tell you all about that another day…
So back at the click of realisation: I spit out the fetid name to Betta.
‘No Im afraid we need the authorisation of the intestato (owner)….’
I can’t and don’t want to believe that he had blocked the phone. It could have been some 3rd party. But I get a stabbing sensation deep in the pit of my stomach. I know it was him…
If he has done this as some lame excuse to discover my where-abouts or if he has done this as a means to speak to me or if he has done this to snoop into my life – I AM NOT going to bow down to it! He is really a creep and I wouldnt put it past him. I refuse to lick his a*** just to get re-connected. I will find a way…
But I am between a rock and a hard place. I was just speaking to a director this morning and I don’t want to lose work. So I am going to have to bite my tongue.
THE FAMILY
I take a leap & dial his horrid number.
‘Mi dispiace ma questo numero è inesistente’…. Yes that’s right INEXISTANT!!!
That confirms everything.
It was him who blocked the phone….
I can’t call the house. His Mum is housebound and she pretty much rules the roost.
Oh what the heck! Umming and erring I just dial.
I feel sick hearing that familiar, weak voice of hers.
‘Hi its Befanina, can I speak to Edward Scissors’ I ask. …
Odd. She doesnt sound surprised by my voice…It’s all falling into place now…. She is the type of woman to be ‘very surprised’ by an impromptu phone call from her sons unfavourable, ‘missing’ ex-girlfriend! She says she’ll pass him over. My heart is pounding and im dreading hearing his voice.
She comes back on the line and says ‘no sorry he’s not here’.
Which is ‘funny’ as the house is 2-meters squared and one would know if Edward Scissor-Hands was in or not!!! …
Don’t despair there’s still his little sister, whom I always got on well with and kind of felt sorry for. She is really witty, a would-be comedienne or PR, but is trapped in her suffocating family and being a single-mother has no-way out. With a family that keeps you on a leash and punishes you for trying new things I can hardly blame her for staying within the confines of the prison.
Im slightly hesitant about calling her. She is rouhger than the Mum and Im sure she would have punched me if she cared. But she hates her brother, so I might be able to win her over into giving me his ‘new’ number…
She is ‘half-surprised to hear me, complements me on my Italian (I used to speak a muddled Roman-with an English accent), but there’s something fishy…. she says she’ll text me his new number… But as you can guess she doesn’t get back to me!! ‘The family’
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, COUNTDOWN…
So now I am in a compelely hopeless situation. In a last futile attempt to get me sbloccata I decide to call 119….LaLaLa Im in luck. I can tell by the sound of this girl’s earthy Roman voice that she’s a good’n. Im very perceptive when it comes to judging peoples sensitivity. Some would call me over-sensititve, but in these type of events every little counts. I try to be honest. Honesty is the best policy: I say that my ex had blocked my phone, but I by-mistake said ‘sbloccato’ which means unblocked and we get in a big kaffufle as I am telling her I want to unblock my unblocked phone … I explain how it is in his name but it was a present he gave me a year ago; he had blocked his phone and I couldnt call him and ‘sob, sob’ I use my phone for work … and we go round in another circle as she doesn’t understand whose phone Im calling from… ‘sniff sniff’ ‘Im sorry my Italian’s awful’ I blubber through half-tears. She assures my Italian is good and just like an angel says:
‘Listen Ill do you a favour and unblock it for you, but if he blocks it again you wont be able to unblock it’… I could have kissed her! Thank you, thank you, thank you ….
At this critical point I am sweating and hot all over, the tension of almost getting there but not quite being there is like waiting for a bomb to be de-activated…
She starts to take me through the process: then the line goes dead ‘Nooooooo’ We were sooooo close…. then I can hear her but she cant hear me… I keep saying ‘pronto, pronto…’ I give Betta a desperate look and we both cling to the phone pleading with her to hear me. There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to appeal to someone else at TIMs good nature, and we had come so far… Oh gosh, I can’t bear it!!!
She comes back on line….. ‘O mio dio … I thought you were a gonner,’ I chirp ‘Its like being in a film I swear!!’….
Finally an unblocked phone. But she advises me to go change over the dati i.e. name & codice fiscale to my name subito.
The stupid thing about this phone malarky is that its not some YEAR-LONG contract that I had been fitting up a huge bill for in his name. It is a little piece of card, it cost him 10 euros while we were going out, it was a present and its PAY-AS-YOU GO that I PAY FOR …
Anyway… we sail off to the TIM shop in Betta’s red VW Beatle soft top. Usually I cant stand the mess my hair gets into with the roof down. But after all that fatica I am glad for a bit of wind ruffling up my curls. We’re on a mission…
TIM shop: Betta does the talking. I am tired out from all the pleeing on the phone. We dont tell the TIM man all the facts about the break-up and jealous ex. Etc… but we do get my dates changed over just like that! And all for 2 euros! I cant believe my luck. He says it will take up to 24 hours to change over the dates. Which does give me a bit of a pang in the stomach. What if Edward Scissor-Hands gets a whiff of what I’m doing? He’s a stubborn ‘boy’ and once he’s sets his mind on things he wont look back. But Ive done all I can and now I can breathe again. At least we’ve got the ball rolling again…And I can use my phone again. I am sooo happy I could kiss the ground.
WAITING DUCKS
So just as we pull up at the flat I get a phone call from a private number. Oooo you never know, it might just be that director!?…..
‘Pronto’…. no response ‘PRONTO?’…. He hangs up. I know its him… I turn to Betta in dismay asking if she thinks it really could be him? And both our faces drop. I can imagine him sitting around the dinner table with his sour-mother brewing up some vengeful plot.
Betta tells me not to think about it. We can’t do anything for the next 24 hours so we just have to sit like waiting ducks.
We invite a friend over, Danni, for the next ‘puntata’ of Befanina’s Sex In The City life. And laugh about it all and there’s a feeling of relief throughout… Until…. The phone rings again from a ‘private number’. Again there’s no response.
I dont know how I manage to get a winks sleep! Everytime I start to churn over the day and what he could be plotting next I try my hardest to switch him off like a light. I am NOT making contact to ask ‘nicely’ for anything. And I am NOT going to get angry or upset. Even though I do feel completely invaded. Tomorrow is another day.
It really is another day. I wake up to read a lovely email from my overseas ‘lover’. I am so blown away by it that I forget all about my phone. I just bounce up the hill in a doe-eyed daze. Then at lunch-time I decide to call my friend for a coffee in the centre.:
“Tim lei non è abilitato ad effettuare questa chiamata”
Noooooo NOT AGAIN… I am fuming. My hazey loved-up bubble has been totally burst and I think my eyes are going to pop out of my head and my skin is going to burst into flames with rage. Its about 35 degrees in the midday sun but I practically run to the internet point to use the payphone. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back on the phone to 119. The phone has been blocked again this morning after a reported ‘theft’ by the owner.
I meet with Betta and we go back to TIM. It’s hopeless, there’s nothing I can do. They wont unblock it without his permission. I wont call him up and ask him any favours and I doubt he would agree to them anyway it would just give him pleasure to hear me begging. I have to change numbers.
NEGATIVE = POSITIVE
The concept of calling up everyone in my phonebook and avert them to my change of number is not very appealing but I will look at the positive side of things. Come on Befanina. Some sour-puss ex is not going to bring you down. Nor am I going to worry about the lost credit on the other phone. It will be a gift to TIM.
Just think, as I call up all these people they’ll suddenly remember ‘that great British actress’ and they’ll cast me in their next blockbuster, Academy Award winning film. And I will dedicate the first line of my Oscar speech all to him:
“I would like to thank Edward Scissor Hands for making me a star!’
Lots of love Befanina xxx
*A faux parent is like a fake parent or adopted parent. They are similar to an auntie or uncle but actually assume the role of parents.
(I met my faux parents after an accute case of appendicitis/peritonitis four years ago. I was staying in an apartment by myself, in Italy. After I’d been discharged from hospital I got locked in my apartment, bedbound and unable to raise myself up off the bed to answer the door. So a nice couple (friends of friends) took me into their house to recover and bit by bit became my faux parents. I am eternally grateful! I became the daughter they never had and they became an extra set of parents! I kept in contact with them and came back to see them at every opportunity. Four years later I am back living with them whilst studying Italian at the University for Foreigners.)
Filed under: Phone wars
