Saturday, July 24, 2010

Can You Hear Me Now???


I'm touched. Really, I'm overcome with emotion. My cell phone company, out of the goodness of it's megalomaniacal heart, has sent me a gift. Okay, a voucher for a gift. Okay, for a gift that isn't available yet. Soon maybe. While supplies last. But I do have the brochure already.

It's a really special gift, or it will be, I'm told. It's a micro cell gizmo that multiplies the signal strength of my cell phone in my home by a lot. You do the math. What's a lot times zero bars?

When that fateful day comes, I might be able to send and receive calls. Until then I have an iThing, which means, of course, I have AT&T. Which means I continue to pay for a landline, because people occasionally wish to communicate with me using voice technology that has been around since Bell summoned Watson to his rumpus room.

Somebody at AT&T named Dana sent me a note thanking me profusely for being a loyal customer with a choice, which makes me wonder who's been slipping mushrooms into Dana's marijuana brownie batter. Did no one tell Dana I have no other carrier choice since Deb got me my iNotaphone after I'd unfortunately waxed effusive over all the things it can do other than be a phone? And that were I to go back to my previous carrier, AT&T would sue me for early termination? Termination of what, exactly? I'd like to know. Give me a call sometime and explain it to me, Dana. Here's the number: 516-509-5700. Yeah, it'll be ringing off the hook now.

You say sue isn't the correct term for what phone companies do to us? Fee sounds more accurate, does it? A fee for giving up on nothing? For losing faith in Tinkerbell? For deserting a company that's already in breach of contract? For tiring of watching my money spent on painting the nation tangerine, as if a wishfully Photoshopped "coverage" map actually makes the system work? For growing sick of ads featuring the lesser Wilson brother extolling the multi-tasking potential of AT&T's system? Hey, watch me multi-task. Observe as I pull hair out of my head with one hand while I bang the phone against a telephone pole with the other.

What I'd like is some reliable single-tasking, if you catch my drift, AT&T. I gave up my pager last millennium under duress from family and friends, who wondered when I'd enter the modern age. I finally made it there, and now I'm inviting you to join me.

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