Grown Man With Prepaid Phone Claims To Have His Shit Together

2 March, 2016. 13:11

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

DESPITE BEING OLD ENOUGH to get married and for it not to be weird, a 25-year-old pool cleaner from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has lashed out at his friends for making fun of the fact that he still has a prepaid phone.

Typically seen as the training wheels on the mobile phone market, only teenagers and thrifty pensioners still use a prepaid service.

“I just keep losing everything,” said James Tudor, a bizarrely successful Jim’s Pool Cleaning franchisee.

“Wallets, keys, phones. I just can’t seem to keep a track of anything. My bank thinks I’m doing something dodgy, ordering a replacement card every four weeks.”

Having owned a mobile phone from nearly every major mobile phone provider in the country, James has had the opportunity to experience each carrier for what they are.

“Dodo was better than I thought. $20 could get me through a whole weekend,” he said.

“Worst was Telstra, closely followed by Aldi. Like the beer you can get at there, it’ll leave you broke, sick and writhing around in your bed on Monday morning.”

Rather than go on a pay-by-the-month plan like the rest of the population, Tudor has chosen to swim against the tide.

He claims that he has all his marbles in the same pouch, despite only owning an iPhone once – and that was only for a month.

“I’ve had smartphones before, but they just end up costing me more money than they’re worth,” he said.

“I bought an iPhone once, but I dropped it the week I got it. D’oh. Then I lost it in the surf at Mooloolaba.”

James’ technological misery is a source of constant entertainment for his mates, who say that while he is far from an idiot, he just does really, really dumb shit every now and then.

“Where do I start,” said mate Glenn, a local builder.

“Some of the shit he’s done over the years beggars belief. About a year ago, he sold all the alloy wheels on his car for rent and replaced them with those wok-eyed space-saver spare tyres. He drove around on those skinny little wheels for months. He could’ve died,”

“Fuck me, that’s just the start of it.”

Despite being bullied mercifully and having to humiliatingly start an “I’ve got a new mobile number” Facebook event each quarter, Tudor is unphased by his alternative lifestyle.

“I don’t care. I’ve had this Samsung for two weeks now, which means I’ll have a new phone by Easter,”

“I’m not stupid. I know I’ll lose this phone, so why on Earth should I hop on a plan.”