Thursday, March 10, 2011

Plugs

Even before I went to work in Woolworths I knew a lot about plugs: 3-amp, 5-amp, 13-amp, 2 or three pins, pins square or round. That’s probably why they put me on the electrical counter.

Because of these inconsistencies, electrical appliances generally came without a plug attached – it was up to the customer to provide their own, though some shops would offer to wire it up for you.

So it was no great surprise to find that the first A4 instruction sheet which I fished out of the box of my new notebook computer started by saying First Select Your Plug - in 11 languages.

But where from? There were no plugs in the box, & inspection showed that the transformer had no plug attached. And the one shown in the helpful drawing on the instruction sheet was not a British plug. It had the wrong shaped prongs & was only half a plug.

Cue short period of imprecation.

But before trailing all the way back to the shop it was worth checking the box again.

And sure enough there it was – all on its own underneath the floor of what I had assumed was simply packaging to protect the contents during their long journey to England. After all it really was only half a plug, ready to click in to the dock provided to enable me to link up to the mains.

The reason why us older folk get into these binds is not that we are gaga, half deaf & half blind (though we may be). It takes us longer because first we have to forget about all those things we learned when we were young.