The linguistic barrier is just another ingredient to throw into the poisonous communicatory gumbo Telstra have brewed. I have nothing against Filipinos, Filipinas, or the transgender nationals of that country. (Filipenis and Filipenots are my suggested neologisms.) But I have a scant knowledge of telecommunications and when you farm out my telecommunicatory dilemma to people who speak a call-centre creole then I'm more distant from clarity than ever. These are clearly lovely people. But I need the clarity, not the loveliness. Give me articulate arseholes.

I've been on the phone for two hours. This is pretty normal. I'm waiting to talk to my sixth person for whom English will be a second (third?) language. These people have been trained and hived together in a Third World city to catch First World shit, and they are flawlessly polite. In the labyrinthine course of this call I have been apologised to 35 times so far. I keep tally of my apologies like a farmer counting sheep, each fifth apology I run a diagonal line through the previous four. But apology is just a type of sneer when you know it's a rote-learned tactic to defuse hotheads who have been driven, despite the early hour, to contemplate whisky and weed.

I remember as a kid sitting on the back seat of our Fairlane with my big sister beating me over the head with a Breakfast At Tiffany's Barbie. A brutal doll, hard as Oscar and bristling with bling. After every blow she'd say in a cartoon-mouse falsetto, "Sorry, Ansy. You're a good brother." Whump. Oww. "Sorry, Ansy."

I've lost touch with that sister. Could she have kicked on, become Telstra's CEO? Are they sitting in some enormous room whispering to each other about me, stifling laughter as they flick me from one to another? I got our new bitch here. I apologised to him til he cracked his head on his desk screaming of Audrey Hepburn. Then I apologised for the apologies. He called the apology for the apologies the final insult. Then I apologised for the final insult – which means it wasn't. Next I thanked him for being a loyal customer, hee, hee. Told him I understand completely, while mustratingking it clear I never will. Made him repeat his story. Here, you have a turn. Go for the record, girl. Make him start again.

They punt me back and forth; my frustration mounting like it does when I'm speed-dating nuns. But it must be endured. Opt out today and you start from scratch tomorrow. Another two hours ping ponged by a posse of professional apologists while my forehead bleeds.

Days late their cable guy arrives at my door and has a cursory gander and sneers and says my infrastructure is totes inadequate. And he makes it sting. Only the NBN can cable your place, he says. That'll be June, at a guess. He tells me Telstra have turned off my ADSL connection in expectation of hooking up the cable. I'll have to ring them and try and get it switched back on. But don't worry, he says, they're super-polite.