Bang, bang. My phone is dead

Even in Australia, with the conveniences of online banking and the presence of fridge magnets at home for putting messages at eye level, I was bill-paying challenged. Not out of any malicious, corporate-hating sentiment, just because I forgot.

Life in Kyiv was always going to be a challenge. But, with my SIM sorted out by Mr Moi's work, I thought the magic phone bill fairy (or Mr Moi) would pay my phone bill for me.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been getting many a frenzied text message, in Ukrainian, from my provider. Seeing as I don't know Ukrainian, I figure if it's so important, they wouldn't be telling my by text message. Deleted!

Over the weekend, the intensity of these messages increased. Despite getting two per day, I still thought they were just trying to tell me that I'd missed a lot of calls (from my imaginary friends). Budlaska, dyakukye!

But yesterday afternoon, between the hours of four and six, my phone stopped working. I tried ringing Mr Moi, but instead got a pre-recorded voice that lambasted me about something, I'm not sure what. But she sure went on for a while. I should have just hung up, but I didn't, so I listened and felt guilty, like a scolded school kid.

This morning I gave the phone to Mr Moi to take to work with instructions to 'please fix'. There, his colleague-cum-translator listened to the lambasting message (minus the guilt), and told Mr Moi he hasn't paid the bill. Since November. That's fine, said Mr Moi to his colleague-cum-translator. I'll happily pay the bill. If only I'd received one.

I've racked up a couple of hundred dollars worth of calls. To the UK, to Kazakhstan, to Ukraine. From Kazakhstan, from Ukraine.

So I'm currently without a phone, and likely to be until we figure out how to actually pay the bill...