Well...I am back...

...see the silly arrow showing I now have an internet connection. So I am connected to the world again.

But it wasn't plain sailing.

I only have mobile wifi and the old unit broke down a fortnight ago, except I didn't know it was the unit initially and sent a ticket in to my internet provider saying their internet connection wasn't working...a few days later I got an email, which I couldn't receive until I was out in a wi fi cafe, but it said they had tested the mast for two days and the problem was at my end.

So I researched what would be suitable. The more I researched, the more confused I got.

First of all I didn't like the mobile wifi router that I could have got from my internet provider...the specifications were not high enough.

So back to the drawing board.

Read reviews and questions and answers on all kinds of mobile devices. I decided on one which I decided to get from the main computer shop in the U.K. So I went into the store and showed the salesman the picture and details on my phone. Yes we have that, he said and took me to the device. I asked him to confirm that I understood correctly exactly what it did. And it turns out I did. It would do what I expected it to do.

I'll go and get one from the back, he said.

He comes out with a box almost completely encased in a black security device. So I confirm with him it is the same device we have been talking about, and the same as the picture on my phone.

Usually, in a store when someone hands me my intended purchase and it is encased in a security device, they walk me to the till. But this guy walked away and disappeared.

So I went to the till, gave the female assistant the device and put £60 on the counter (three £20 notes) to pay for it. She puts the device behind the counter, presumably to take the security device off. And then takes only one £20 note.

I say hang on, the device I have chosen is just under £60. And I take out my phone and show her the picture of the device and their price of it.

No, it is not, she said, it has been reduced to £13:99. I told her she was wrong and the device I had chosen was just under £60 even with a reduction. But she goes to carry on the transaction through the till, and I say to her "STOP"...there is something wrong here. I said stop again.

But she continues the transaction and stapling the receipt on to one of their KnowHow pieces of paper. All the while I am telling her to stop. Then she puts the paper receipt and "my change" from the £20 note next to the other two £20 notes.

Then she takes the device from under the counter and pushes it next to me. "It's yours," she said. And straight away I can see it is not the device the salesman and I were discussing, and nor is it the same device that is on the pic in my phone.

No it is not, I told her, that is not the device I asked the salesman for, and in any case I told you to stop putting through the transaction as soon as you didn't take the whole £60 to pay for it.

You brought it to the counter, she replied, so you bought it. It's yours. This woman was so objectionable, the whole thing was unbelievable.

I was speechless. I replied that the salesman had brought this security encased item out as the result of the discussion we had on the item in my phone which was the item I had wanted. Because of the black security encasement I would not have known if there was a picture of a bag of popcorn on this packaging. And in addition I had told her several times to stop when I thought something was wrong.

She repeated again, you brought it to the counter, the device is yours.

I was getting nowhere with her. So I said, I don't want this device, I want a refund.

We don't do refunds, the female till assistant said. I told her I was having a refund on this item. Well then, she said, you will have to prove the item is not fit for purpose.

I was gobsmacked. I told her to get the salesman who had brought the item out for me. She said she couldn't leave the till. You will have to find him, she said. Anyway, this item is now yours, she repeated.

How this woman didn't end up in the local Accident & Emergency Department of the local hospital I will never know...

So, I looked around but I couldn't see the salesman. All the while he had been talking to me he was carrying some folders clutched to his chest, so I never saw his name tag.

I told her to get the manager. But she shook her head and said, the item is yours, you brought it to the counter and it is up to you to prove to me that item is not fit for purpose...

So I collared one of their young sales lads walking past and asked him to explain to the lady at the till that this device which I had been wrongly sold by their store did not do the same job as my intended purchase. And I showed him on my phone the specs of the two devices.

The device I wanted had to take my SIM card. I had even bought my SIM card in store to check it was suitable/compatible with my intended device.

But the device they had sold me only took a dongle itself and made the dongle into a wifi hot spot. It did not take a SIM card on its own.

The sales lad just mumbled he didn't understand any of this. It was too technical for him.

So then the woman till lady says I have not proved that the device "I have bought" is not fit for purpose. And the lad makes a hasty escape.

Then, she plays her trump card...she tells me she has looked on her till and they don't have any of the devices I said I wanted in stock, so the sales lad who dealt with me initially couldn't have brought out the item I had wanted anyway. There is only one left in the whole country, the till lady announced to me, and it is in Bolton.

Blazing furious doesn't even begin to describe how I felt.

So I tell her I checked their store checker earlier, and nearly all of their stores had two of the devices I wanted in stock, so I didn't quite understand her statement. I pulled her up on a few other statements she made too. I also asked her why the sales lad had brought another device in place of the one I wanted and covered it with a security device. At no point did I lose my cool. All the way through I was calm, assertive and polite (but in my head was this ambulance flashing its blue lights carrying her to A&E...)

Finally I got my money back. And vowed never to step foot in this store again.

I was in utter disbelief the rest of the day.

This is my silly tale for admirer's Silly Saturday.

I couldn't face looking elsewhere for a mobile wifi device for a few days. I just didn't care at this point.

Then I got up one morning, drove to an electrical shop, walked in. If I didn't see a suitable sales person I was going to walk out. But I saw an older sales guy. That's the one, I thought. Made eye contact and a bee line for him. Explained I was deaf and didn't have a land line but used a mobile wifi for all my internet needs and showed him the broken device. You need one of these, he said...disappeared into the warehouse and came out with the device which I have now set up.

That interaction and transaction was so easy.

Now, although I am now connected to wi fi and can use the internet, I still don't fully understand this dual band, 2.4 & 5GHz router. I had to set it up myself...don't have any convenient techie people to help me. Also, although I have married it to the printer, the printer reports say everything is connected and working perfectly both my iPad and iPhone refuse to recognise the printer now (they did before on my broken router). Even my laptop doesn't want to play ball with the printer and refuses to recognise it. However, my Nexus said straightaway...Hi printer, what do you want me to send you to print!

Unfortunately I cannot use the printer cd to install printer software to the laptop because it is only a wee little netbook with no cd drive. Sigh....

So a few problems to overcome. There is probably a way. Most of my printing was done from the iPhone and iPad. So this is a blow.

Now, I managed to find and download a 100 page PDF on this particular router and am ploughing through it....do I understand what I am reading??? So far it is over my head, but something may sink in...