Did you ever just have one of those days where you want to tear your hair out and scream profanities at the top of your lungs? I've been having that one today.
It started early this morning. I work at home for part of my day, using the Internet to complete the major function of my job. So, I'm kind of dependent on having fast, reliable Internet access. For this , I rely on ComCast.
Which the past two days ComCast's high speed service has had more ups and downs than a yo-yo. It was particularily bad this morning, especially as my morning deadline stared me in the face. I called ComCast's customer service line during the second outage. I swear I want to laugh every time they say, "Thank you for choosing ComCast." Yeah, like I have any choice in the matter. If I want cable in my area of middle Tennessee, I have to go with ComCast. And they probably know of my reservations with the Dish and Direct TV, so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Competition cannot come in fast enough...it might make them actually give two figs about offering decent customer service. Seriously--when I've called in enough to know most of the tips your tech guys are going to tell me, something is wrong here.
So, after the frustration was over and I'd calmed down, I decided to take care of a few errand. One thing I've been wanting to do for a while now is get my car washed. I saw the automatic car wash was free and decided to take care of it. At least I'd feel like I'd accomplished something. I put in my money, selected my wash and pulled in. I got the undercarriage wash and pulled up until it said stop. I put the car in park and sat there, watching as the cycles jumped from six left to zero.
"You have to be kidding me," I said to myself. I waited, hoping maybe this was some cruel joke. I looked around for Alan Funt, but no camera crews emerged.
I drove out, drove around again and found the emergency contact numbers. I called the first one...no answer. I let it ring twenty times, hoping at least for voice mail. Same thing with the second number. Finally, the third number, someone answers. I explain my issue and what had happened.
"I think I know what happened," the guys says. "I think you backed up in the car wash."
"No, I didn't do that," I said.
"You must have," he said. "If you do that, it makes the system think you're done."
"Which would be the case if I had backed up," I said. "I pulled up until it said stop and stopped."
"No, you must have backed up," he said. "Well, give me your address and I will send you a refund. And go ahead on back through. It should work this time."
"Are you sure you can't give me some kind of code to punch in on the keypad and save us both the time?" I asked.
"I don't know how to do that," he said.
At this point, I gave him my information and wondered if I'd ever see my eight bucks. I didn't go through the car wash again since fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I decided to go over to the Smith's Brothers car wash, but apparently I wasn't the only one with this great idea. The line was back to the street and I honestly didn't want to have my car hit waiting in line.
You know, at this point, I think I'd like a do-over for today.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 1/26/2007 12:47:00 PM |
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