I was contacted from a friendly voice from my past that I didn’t even realize read this. It got me wondering who’s out there. I’m interested to know. If you read this, could you post a comment? Let me know who are you and how you know me. Or if you don’t know me (in person), just say hi, and tell me something about yourself.

I know I’ve been conspicuosly absent from my online life. It’s only because I’ve been busy in my real world life. Ironic huh? The time you have actual things to write about is when you have no time to write about them.

Actually, to be honest, nothing that interesting is going on, Andy and I are just working alot. We’re trying to bank enough cash so that we can take off for June and July and not worry about working so much. The house is a wreck and I was trying not to let it bother me because I just didn’t feel like cleaning it. But this morning, while walking past my beautiful new black and red Puma shoes that the cat puked on two days ago, I realized, things may have gotten out of hand.

Andy is on crutches. I was witness his first climbing accident ever. Our friends Alma and Kate were here for a Scooter Rally. We took them to Red Rocks where we went hiking through newly created streams and wet desert in the (almost never seen in Vegas) rain. Andy grabbed on to some wet sandstone, and it broke off. He wasn’t that far off the ground, but he landed wrong. He had to hop on one foot back to the car through the same floods and boulders that got us there. This happened last Monday, and he was just able to put a little weight on it last night.

We are in Florida.

It is three in the morning. I can’t sleep.

We are in Florida.

I finally got out of bed because I was kicking around and vaguely fantasizing about getting rid of Murphy. The fantasy (which could be a reality) was looking up my old, punk ass bitch boss who saddled me with the beast on a “trial basis” and dropping her off on his doorstep in Michigan. Actually, I think about this quite often. Almost four years ago, I took Murphy, with the agreement that I was going to think about keeping her. When I wanted to give her back, they (boss Joe and his wife) wouldn’t take her.

Although thinking back about it, I only talked to his wife on the phone, since puck ass boss Joe was on a business trip. I told her that I couldn’t take care of Murphy the dog anymore and that no one else would take her. I was selling my house and moving, so if they wouldn’t take her back, I would have to put her to sleep. She said she had to call Joe and call me back. When she called back ten minutes later, she said that I would have to do whatever I had to do, but they weren’t taking Murphy back. By this time, the business and and friend relationship had curdled, due to circumstances other than Murphy.

Thinking back on it, she probably never even called Joe. They had a six month old baby at the time, and Joe was gone on business often. Even though his wife was a super, punk ass bitch, for this and many other reasons, I could see the motivation there.

I looked them up on Yahoo. There are two addresses, and one phone number listed that I remember. Their baby is old enough to deal with a dog now. I know Joe loved Murphy, even though he was a punk ass bitch.

I just don’t know what to do with this creature that I became responsible for somewhat by default. By next year, we want to travel the country. Two people, two cats and a dog are just too much in a VW camper van.

I can’t put a sometimes cute, sporadically healthy, mildly intelligent dog down. Even though I joke about the “death shot” often, I could never do it. Well, maybe I could do it. No, no I definitely couldn’t do it.

No other sucker…I mean caring individual like myself would take in a ten year old arthritic, tumor eyed smelly dog, would they? Where can I find people like this?

It’s three thirty a.m.

I’m in Florida.

A document written by Mrs. X on the behalf of Mr. X. Upon the reading of the document, Mr. X said, “yeah, ‘one of the most frustrating, soul sucking experiences I have ever had’ that sounds like it came out of my mouth.”

T-Mobile:

I would like to inform you of a problem I am having with your company. I signed up for your wireless Internet service in December. My wife and I were going to be on the road for an extended amount of time and it sounded like a great addition to our cell phone Internet connections. Our plans changed and our trip was moved to June. I meant to cancel in December, but forgot to make the phone call. When I did call to cancel I had been charged for two months of service. The customer service rep told me there would be a $200 charge for not canceling in the first thirty days. I was shocked. I was on the phone with him for over an hour, with him talking to his manager and then calling me back twice. The best he could do was to charge me $100 over the $60. I never argued the $60, only the early termination fee. I felt this was unacceptable and at this point was questioning the logic, integrity and business savvy of T-Mobile. I couldn’t believe T-Mobile was going to charge me a total of $160 for a service that was used less than five times in the first week of activation. I mean really, I’ve seen more finessed extortion tactics from the mafia.

As the phone call went on, it was slowly beginning to sink in that T-Mobile was going to be so petty and greedy that they were going to lose a customer who had already found that they enjoyed the T-Mobile service and was willing to sign up for a year in the near future, when we actually needed the service. For $100 T-Mobile was going to risk, our future business and the business all the other people that we could tell this story to. How many forums are we members of? What kind of forums are there on the Internet? Forums to talk about customer service, RV, camping, wireless and phone service? How about a web log? How many complaints does T-Mobile get to the Better Business Bureau? What about radio shows like Clark Howard? How many complaints to the government? Really, how much negative press can one person give? Probably not more than that $100……right?

The phone call to your customer service department was one of the most frustrating, soul sucking experiences I have ever had. I was not rude. I did not yell. But to be responded to with, “those are the rules”, to every well thought out, considerate, logical argument was irritating, demoralizing and frankly horrifying. Horrifying because this made me see that this is what American business, and in a larger sense, American capitalism has been reduced to. This is the American way of life that we are so ready, willing and proud to export. How embarrassing.

If you would spend a quarter of the money that you do on advertising and spend it on improving your customer service relations it would be well spent. Because really, you can talk all you want about how much better it is “over here”, but the words are empty. No one really believes the slick expensive advertising, we’ve been barraged with it since birth. The true test of a company is one that T-Mobile just took with my phone call and sadly, it failed miserably.

To start off with, I would obviously like any early terminations fees associated with this account waived. Will I feel good about T-Mobile after that, probably not. After hours on the phone, an attack of acid reflux and the time and energy it took to write this letter, I am feeling tired and upset. What I would really like is for T-Mobile to make a gesture that would change my feelings about this exchange that we have just had. I would like T-Mobile to show me that they understand what customer service means. I will also add that T-Mobile would do this “as a courtesy, and as a courtesy only” I understand that T-Mobile all it’s subsidiaries, whatever they may be are not “beholden” to me or any of it other billions of customers. By any “nice” actions they take, I will not construe said action as an admission on T-Mobile’s part that they are in any way, in any danger of having any litigious actions taken against them.

Get it guys, take the service charge off, throw me a bone and we’ll be cool….okay?