RECENTLY, my Virgin Media bill doubled, and with no other means of sorting the issue, I realised I would have to call their call centre.

So, I searched online for their number and opted for the one which, if dialled from my Virgin landline, would be free of charge.

The only problem was that my house phone was old, and a couple of the buttons would intermittently stick or misdial. Also, because I rarely use my landline, the phone cable was shortened to barely three feet long, which meant I needed to crouch on the floor beside it to use it.

Having previously endured lengthy call centre calls, I reckoned I would be at least half an hour sorting out my issues, so I had a brainwave.

You see, I had borrowed a toning belt to tone my stomach muscles, and I reckoned I might as well try it out while on the phone to the call centre.

Belt on, pad and pen to hand, I began to press the buttons on my phone. One, three, four, five. All was going well until... four. Beeeeep. Four. Four. The button stuck and I was back to square one.

Meanwhile, my toning belt had begun to gently pulsate, which felt quite relaxing.

Starting again. One, three, four, five, four, five, four...

“Great.” I’d gotten past the sticky number four until… one.

“No way.” The blinking number one then stuck.

I tried several more times and each time I was getting more and more frustrated, until eventually...

“For bills, payments or remaining minutes please press one.”

“Hurrah.” The sticky digit one pressed successfully.

“OK, to pay now, please press one, or press two for...” etc.

“I will now ask for three characters of your password.”

But I had no clue what my password was and there was no option to give my account number which I had to hand.

“OK, using your phone keypad, please press the button that has the first character of your password.”

I did nothing, and then...

“For example. If the character is A, B or C, just press number two.”

Meanwhile, my toning belt seemed to be ramping up somewhat as the relaxing waves felt more like pins and needles.

Eventually I was transferred to a “real” person who parroted his standard list of security questions.

“Thank you, Janice, how can I help you?”

Checking my watch, I noticed that it had taken me 22 minutes to get to this point, some of which was of course the fault of my dodgy phone.

“My bill has doubled and...”

I tried to explain my angst without raising my voice, but it wasn’t easy because I was put on hold and transferred twice, meaning I had to repeat the whole saga again and again!

“Argh... I yelped suddenly as the toning belt began to intermittently pulsate rapidly, causing me mild contractions.

“Thank you, Janice, is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes, I can’t seem to get a WiFi signal throughout my house and...

“No problem, Janice,” was the polite reply.

“I will transfer you to...”

“Not again,” I muttered, just as I felt a couple of piercing wasp stings either side of my belly button.

“Ooooohh, ahhh...”

“I will now put you through to our faults department,” another automated voice added.

“Right now, our team are a little busy, but we’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

By now my back was killing me sitting for so long in the same position on the hard floor, but I was restricted as to how much I could move while wearing the cumbersome toning belt and only having a few feet of phone cable!

“Hello Janice, can you confirm your postcode?” someone eventually asked.

“Argh!” Was my loud reply because the toning belt was now rapidly pulsing, and my contractions were getting stronger and stronger.

“My em... postcode is em... ML...”

“Your voice is not so good, Janice; can you repeat your postcode?”

“ML... ooo, aghhh...”

“Janice, are you still there?”

By now my legs were cramped too.

“Yep, sorry...” I puffed while clutching my stomach and finally managing it.

“And could you give me the first line of your address?”

I had built up quite a sweat as I had now been sitting in the same cramped position for 54 minutes and 32 seconds with the toning belt pulsating faster and faster, so I had no choice but to flip on to my stomach for relief.

However, this caused the plus button on my toning belt to rapidly increase the intensity and speed of the pulses, causing me bursts of pain like intense electrodes from a cattle prod!

“Argh!” I let out a loud roar as I fumbled frantically.

“Janice,” a concerned voice asked, “Are you OK?”

I hung up. The next minute, whilst catching my breath...

“I’ve been trying to phone you for over an hour mum!” My daughter had called concerned.

“What have you been up to?”

Frustrating, dodgy phones, call centre agony, painful electric shocks... Where do I begin?