Natalia Antonova

Late in the evening, as I was busy trying to keep a cranky baby happy while simultaneously catching up on the last season of “The Walking Dead” (what do babies have to do with zombies? Well, both are relentless, for a start), the long-awaited e-mail announcement from Instagram arrived.

“Finally,” it said. “Instagram for Android. Download now.”

At last! The mobile app gods were smiling down upon me! Instagram, a popular photography app for the iPhone had finally made its debut on the Android platform, and I had plenty of stylized pictures of the baby I wanted to take!

 put my future photography model into his playpen and distracted him with a wind-up crocodile as I opened Android Market on my Samsung Galaxy S i9000.

The app wasn’t there.

I had a Darth Vader moment, shouting “NOOOOOOOOO” into the heavens. Well, I shouted it on the inside, anyway.

Then I decided to go to the Google Play website and see if I would have any luck there. My built-in browser refused to magnify the site properly for me.

“This is the perfect time to download Opera Mini!” I told the mildly curious baby.

I downloaded the superior mobile web browser, and headed on over to Google Play again.

“This app is incompatible with your device,” the site told me grimly.

“Oh, I know! It’s because I’m in Russia!” I said to myself. When in doubt, blame Canada... er, Russia.

Then I noticed all of these reviews from Russian users who were already busy using the app.

My head exploded. Or it would have, if I were in one of those classic, violent cartoons.

As such, I just sat there, and stared down at my phone. Then I noticed how much more fun the baby was having with his old-school wind-up crocodile.

I thought there was a lesson in there somewhere. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to learn it straight away. I needed to spend a few solid hours feeling sorry for myself first.