Monday, July 02, 2012

Dokken 'Under Lock And Key'


Sorry about not finishing up my cell phone saga, folks. I got a little busy with the return of Bob Campbell and myself to the afternoon airwaves on 600 WSJS. You can listen to from 3 to 6pm Eastern here locally, on the web, or the TuneIn or the WSJS apps. Who knew that doing a 3 hour show was so time consuming outside of those 3 hours?

Shall we dive back in?

I finally got off work at 6 on a Monday evening and my shoes were as light as white bread on my feet. I was happy. My weekend cell hell was almost over. I felt like singing to all the birds and insects as if I were Cinderella on the way to my truck Roxy.

There was much joy!

Did you know that God is the greatest practical joker in the Universe?

He’s really good with the small things and his timing is unmatched… I got out of my truck and started to hoof it to the store. And that’s where Mr. Omnipresent decided to rib me a little. He provided a small parade of vehicles passing through the shopping center and NO ONE in those vehicles were considerate enough to stop and wave me across. Apparently they didn’t see Mr. BoJangles dancing up a happy two-step next to that Honda Accord parked across two spots.

I walked into the store and with a smile I said, “I’m Eugene Sims and I’ve got an appointment for six.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t do anything,” the store associate said back. Her words simply didn’t compute with me.

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m here just to exchange my phone for a replacement,” I said.

“I’m sorry. We just can’t do anything,” she said.

“Okay,” I said with a little exasperation in my voice. “So we can’t exchange my phone. But can you tell me exactly what you mean by I’m sorry we can’t do anything because that isn’t making any sense to me.”

“Our computer system is down and we can’t do anything at all,” she said.

“Oh, see that would have been helpful information to me,” I said with a smile. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we can’t do anything gives me no clue as to why you can’t do anything.”

Then some bag of muscles slightly shorter than me came up and said, “You should have called ahead.”

“Are you the store manager?” I asked.

“No.”

“Well I suggest that you keep your comments to yourself because I made an appointment for six. That means that I called ahead. So why don’t you get out of my face and go somewhere else,” I said while detecting a smirk out of the other employees nearby.

I got the immediate impression that the guy was not fully appreciated by the rest of the staff as he walked away from us.

“Look. I’m not angry. These things happen,” I said to the woman there at the counter. “Telling me right off that you couldn’t do anything because the computer system was down would have been very helpful and it would have kept my blood pressure at a safe level. If you only knew the trouble that I’ve been having trying to keep this thing charged you would understand my frustration at the moment.”

“So you’re telling me that I can’t even exchange my phone?” I asked hoping for something. Anything.

“We have to use the system to get your new phone working and operational,” she said.

“Okay. Cool. I’ll just come by in the morning. May I make an appointment for the morning at nine?”

I was set and hopefully that would be the last time I would step into this cell hell on almost a daily basis.

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