Saturday, February 04, 2006

No news is good news

I do have a reason for not having posted in so long. But instead of coming out and just saying it, I'd like to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a great warrior who spent many years protecting his country from its enemies. When he finally was able to return home, he met a woman who was close to his age. They fell in love and married.

They greatly desired to have children, but try as they might they were unable to. After many years, they finally conceived. When they visited the doctor, he told the woman “You aren’t young, you know. There may be some complications with your pregnancy because of your age. They may affect you or your child.” But the couple was not concerned. “This child will be a blessing for us” they said.

Finally, the day came for the child to be born, and she delivered a perfect baby boy. The next day, the doctor came in to see the couple with a concerned look on his face. “I don’t know what the problem is” he said. “Your son doesn’t make any sounds. He doesn’t cry or anything. We’ve checked him out completely and we can’t find anything wrong with him. This may be one of the complications I was worried about” But the couple wasn’t concerned. “This child will be a blessing for us” they said.

They took the child home with them. The mother spent many weeks getting adjusted to the child’s schedule. After many weeks, the couple had figured out the child’s schedule and all seemed well. The boy grew and thrived.

On the boy’s sixth birthday, the mother decided to celebrate with his favorite meal; hotdogs and french fries. While she was preparing the meal, she was also preparing the cake for afterward. She put some of the french fries in the oil to cook and was distracted by frosting the cake, and one of the batches of french fries were overcooked. Not wanting to waist any good food, she mixed them in with the rest of the french fries for the meal.

When time came for dinner, she served her son with his favorite meal. He was elated and smiled at his mother and father. As he began eating, however, his expression changed to one of concern, and then disdain. He turned to his mother and spoke!

“The French fries are burnt.” He said.

“Good Lord!” his mother said. “You can talk!”

“You can talk!” his father cheered. “And perfectly, too! Why haven’t you spoken until now?”


The boy replied “Up until now, everything has been fine.”

Up until now, everything was fine.

Some of you may know, I’ve changed my phone service from Verizon to Vonage. Great deal, save money, free long distance, and you can take your phone number with you. I THOUGHT all was well, until Thursday, when I received a bill from Sprint. Sprint was my long distance provider under Verizon.

I looked at the dates on the Sprint bill, then looked at when my phone was switched over to Vonage, and Sprint charged me for long distance service on a phone line that didn’t exist for an entire month. So I called Sprint.

They were so helpful.

I was informed that even if my phone line didn’t exist, since I didn’t cancel the service (that was impossible for them to provide, by the way) that they would keep charging me. Interesting. They can charge me for a service they cannot provide on a phone line that doesn’t exist, because I didn’t ask them to do something that seemed like common sense to me.

Needless to say, the phone call didn’t go well! I can’t remember the last time I yelled at a customer service representative. But this one provided absolutely NO service what so ever.

If anyone from Sprint is out there reading this, maybe you should review the tape of that conversation. It was around 8:00 pm Eastern time on Thursday, February 2nd. Maybe you can tell me where I went wrong in my reasoning.

Other than that, everything’s been fine!