Fourteen

Now, we had been without cell phones for almost 4 years. The last phone I owned was a Samsung Blackjack. I notoriously had gotten phones from AT&T that wouldn't work properly or would be afflicted with every known issue, or just wouldn't work after they sent it to me. Once, people would call me and the calls would be routed to some woman's house in Cincinnati, Ohio. They couldn't reproduce the problem, but her home number was the same as my voice mail land line number. (It's not free to call your voice mail. Your voice call goes to a land line number. It's the voice mail platform number. You've been educated.) So I had to change my phone number.

Anyway, way back in 2007 or some shit, I started having issues with that phone and got a few replacements. I sent all the phones back like I always had. One day, I opened up my bill, and it was for 1600bucks or some shit. WTF, indeed. Well, they never received any of the equipment and couldn't track it by any of the tracking numbers THEY had given me which means it never got scanned by the warehouse which means I never mailed it which means I had to pay for it. Full price. 3 of them at 500 a pop.

Um. No.

I still owe My Nemesis like 1600 bucks. Says them. Every time I get a bill, I dispute it. I will dispute it until the day I die.

Credit. Who needs it?

Fast forward. Dave starts working for Lockheed. Discounts of epic proportions- With whom, you ask? Of course, it would be my old nemesis, AT&T. But he almost needs a phone for work now and I've turned into this playgrouping, birthday partying, playdating, soccer mom version of myself that I don't understand but frankly, I get tired of getting lost in this god forsaken fuck hole. Yes. It's a circle. I know. Find a spoke and get on it. They will take you to New Circle or downtown. But if you're not familiar with the roads to the spokes or downtown... God forbid I try to venture OUTSIDE of Lexington like I did for a birthday party the other weekend.

Tragic.

Anyway, so we start this process by trying to see how much all this would be costing us monthly by setting up a plan online. Entering our information, trying to see if we have a deposit. BOOM- We've got a refurbished phone ordered. Ok. Now, I don't know about you, but yes. I accidentally ordered a cellphone from my nemesis. So great. We decide to go down to the store and get the account set up properly with two phones... Because some how we went from one free phone that would get passed back and forth to 2 iPhones and data plans and text messaging and OMGMYHEADISGOINGTOEXPLODE.

We go to the store. Get the phones. Get cases. Get the account set up the way we think it's supposed to be set up until we get the accidental phone (God, it sounds like a pregnancy that you don't know what to do with at this point, doesn't it?) And things are great. We download apps and ring tones and Angry Birds and blah blah blah. We get the accidental phone, take it back to the store, get the line canceled... And think and are reassured that everything is fine, once Dave's discount is applied everything will be great, the first bill will be like a hundred bucks. (Massive discount.)

But then the bill comes. And it's like $400 bucks. And I'm having PTSD flashbacks of wanting to strangle My Nemesis' customer service representatives that require deep breathing exersizes to keep from murdering someone or committing Hari Kari with a plastic spoon. I call them.

"I see you're one of our valued iPhone customers, we'd like to thank you for being with Your Nemesis." (Bitch, you're going to wish you, me or both of us wasn't with My Nemesis in about 2 seconds.)
"So, we canceled this line yesterday, but I got my bill and on the automated service it's still telling me that the amount due is the same. Someone's messed something up, again, and it needs to be fixed before we're not your valued iPhone customers anymore.".
"Well let me look into that for you... Oh I see, you canceled a line outside your 30 day Buyer Remorse Period. You're liable for all the charges used on the phone plus the activation fee."
"We didn't use the phone. We didn't activate the phone. We didn't open the box the phone came in."
"Well, I can wave those charges for you, but you're still going to have to pay the activation fee."
"For what?"
"Activating the phone."
"We didn't activate the phone."
"But you would have had to have returned the phone in 3 days to not have paid the activation fee."
"So who's job is it to tell us that. The interwebz? The mailer in the box we didn't open because our intent was to return the phone unused or Customer Service's after we called Customer Service and couldn't cancel the phone? The guy at the store?."

(Now, folks. I worked for 2 years in Sprint Call Centers. The thing I hate MOST is people not wanting to do their jobs. You are there to do one thing and do one thing well. Satisfy the customers you come into contact if you can, if they have a verifiable and just issue with their account. This woman did NOT want to do her job. She wanted to keep her average call time down. Don't give me shit for giving her shit for making her do her job.)
"Ok, well ma'am, I'll go ahead and wave that fee for you as a one time courtesy, but please know that next time you need to return the phone with in 3 days to avoid paying an activation fee."
"You know what, don't even bother. With our corporate discount, we don't pay activation fees anyway. No skin off anyone's teeth."
So she goes in and waves all the fees associated with the Pregnancy Line. Then she finds another problem.

GREAT.

"Well ma'am, I just noticed that when the store canceled your line, they didn't cancel it as a Buyer's Remorse, so you're going to be charged a 350 ETF."
"Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously. My Nemesis is the reason we went without cellphones for 4 years and give me time to port my number back out, and I'll go without one again, so help me."
"Well, let me call the store to verify you returned the phone..."
"WHY IN THE WORLD, LOGICALLY, WOULD I KEEP A REFURBISHED PHONE THAT I PAID NOTHING FOR KNOWING THAT I WOULD COST ME 350.00 WHEN IT RETAILS FOR 250.00?!?!?!?!?"
"Well, can you hold while I call the store..."

45 MORE minutes of my life wasted on the phone with My Nemesis. Thank you Whatever is out there that I can talk and text at the same time... Dave got some relatively amusing texts about firebombing My Nemesis.

But anyway, send me your number. We'll text. I have UNLIMITED TEXTING!!!!! Until I get pissed off enough to cancel this fucking thing. Or throw it through a wall. Or at Dave... Which I'm pretty close, because the GPS on it got us into a car accident.

Right?


But the 50% off accessories KINDA makes up for it. KINDLE CASE here I come!!!!!