SERENDIPITY

I was getting ready for the day yesterday when I got one of those ‘human mechanised’ phone calls. The call came in from DSTV, the young girl at the other end of the phone asked if it was a good time to call and if I was Mrs.  Bunmi. I said it was a ‘not so good time’ but since she was already speaking with me she might as well continue. She went on to recite the uniform manual while I listened and waited. All formalities done with, she proceeded to inform me that ‘they noticed that I had not renewed my subscription in a while.’ I agreed with her. I also told her that I no longer wished to subscribe to DSTV, and just to rub it in (sorry), I added that I had taken my business to Go TV! We had decided about a couple of years ago not to subscribe during school term because my kids are not able to control the urge to sit in front of the box and flip through channels all evening as well as all week end long, at an obvious detriment to everything else, school work, homework, family time etc. So after many deals were broken by them, we all agreed that DSTV will only come on during the holidays.  I explained to the DSTV girl that on the last day of school term, my son had skipped rather happily to our local, DSTV office, with the full amount for a full bouquet (wonder why it’s called that, as there is no comparison what so ever between fresh meadow and endless channels of…….. Please fill in the blank.) My son was told that he could not subscribe because we still had the old decoder and that we had missed the deadline for swapping it free of charge, for a new one; they said the only way to renew our subscription is to pay N10,000 for a new decoder! My son returned home sad. He explained to me and I told him that there was no way I was going to pay for a new decoder as we did not ask them to change the old one. I telephoned their office and explained to them that I had bought a decoder from them in order to view their channels at a subscription fee and that if they upgraded the technology, they should change it free of charge for all existing subscribers. The man at the other end of the phone tried his best to explain that because we had missed the deadline, we must pay for a new decoder, unfortunately. I thanked him and put the phone down. Surprisingly my son agreed with me. That was three months ago. Since then we have had a local technician install a special outdoor antenna that enables us get all the local channels clearly. My kids have gradually been weaned off wasted hours of mindless television programs. Now they have started reading for pleasure, playing games, having conversations and we are spending more quality time together, actually talking to each other. My son has re-discovered his love for monopoly! He is now always talking of buying up the whole of London and owning several banks! We have also discovered brilliant programs on the local television, I particularly enjoy, ‘Kids Say The Darndest Things’ on NTA, my kids do too. They now listen to the news with us, but on the whole we all watch far less television. We spend much more time doing the traditional family activities together, and I just love it. We sometimes have guests asking us why we are not hooked up to DSTV; many just assume that we are in between subscriptions. But I quickly tell them that we are not, I also tell them our experience with DSTV and the serendipity effect it has had on us as a family. A couple of our friends have followed suit, (sorry DSTV) and they love it too. You save money and gain something of which the value is inestimable.  I cherish the quiet times spent together with the television off and our noses stuck in books; mine is usually stuck in an African author, just finished ‘Secret Lives of Baba Segis Wives,’ by Lola Soneyin, thoroughly enjoyed it! My younger son is into ‘Lemony Snicket,’ and he loves it too. A whole new world has opened up, things we had so taken for granted.  So I don’t miss DSTV and I’m not going back to them, thank you very much. The young girl continued to try her best to lure us back to DSTV from Go TV, I told her firmly that my family was truly done with them and their constant intrusion on our family space. She giggled in resignation, thanked me and asked if there was anything else I would like her to do for me, I politely told her to get off my phone!