Things About Misery, and the Company it Loves

Allow me to share my headache with you.

In addition to working All The Jobs and Doing All the Things, I also happen to be responsible for All The Children and the various and assorted types of mayhem that they create. As in: "Mom it's three AM and my car won't start because I dropped the keys in an ice-cold rushing river so now what do I do?" and "Mom I have this weird rash all over my skin that won't heal and I can't get insurance because the website where you nearly completed my application for me is way too complicated so how can I go to the doctor?" and "Mom I forgot my shoes and knee pads and the league volleyball tournament starts in 15 minutes but you can get them from the locker room and drive 76 miles before game time, right?". You know, things like that.

Two nights ago, it was this:

"What is your access code?"

me: "for what? why? what is going on?"

"My iPad was stolen and I have to file an insurance claim."

"HOW?"

"I was really careful all day."

"But I mean the stolen part."

"My window was down. And they were punks on skateboards."

#notthatcareful

After discovering that a certain phone company doesn't have 24/7 customer service and I apparently don't know my access code, I told All of The Children that I couldn't solve anymore problems until I had slept. And after two nights of quasi-acceptable sleep, I finally found the mental courage to tackle it.

So begins my headache.

It was a simple call to a certain phone company to find out how to file an insurance claim for a stolen iPad. It resulted in an upgrade to unlimited data upon the "shocking" discovery that we had, yet again, exceeded our data limit. Unfortunately for my moral high ground, the upgrade came at the cost of a two year subscription to television, which means A) I might accidentally catch part of this presidential election process (gods forbid) and B) FOOTBALL.

Once I sold my soul for a few extra gigabytes, I remembered why I called in the first place and asked about the insurance thing. "Oh sure," the extra-peppy-because-she-scored-an-upgrade service rep chirped, "I just need to transfer you to our insurance provider. Or you can do it online, it's super easy." Lies. all lies. From the pit of hell.

That was 2.5 hours ago. I am now on my 5th representative, I have been locked out of the website three times. I have been in two three way conversations with four different people from both the phone company AND the insurance company, and while almost everybody agrees (depending on the particular group I am chatting with at any given hour) that I do have insurance on my devices (which is pretty damn good since I am paying an extra $29.99 a month), there is a lot of confusion about which devices I have and how they are covered. But don't worry. I am sure that Raychelle and Matt can figure out what Paula, Carrie, Jaida, Roger, and that one dude in a "special department" I got transferred to that only spoke Spanish, haven't been able to in TWO AND A HALF FREAKING HOURS. And then there was the heinous witch who told Roger that she wanted to speak to his supervisor while we were in a three way because she wasn't allowed to be put on hold due to her job restrictions but insisted that I should call her back and wait on hold once the inept Roger got his sh*t together. For the record, that chick had her info more wrong than the whole rest of the troop combined.

OH! STATUS UPDATE! Raychelle took me off hold for a minute to tell me that  - wait, oh, no. It looks like not all of my devices are covered by the multi device protection plan. Only the ones that I don't want to file any claims on. Wait - she's double checking. Yep. Only the devices that are fine are covered.

I am about to send Aspen on a rescue mission for tylenol and wine. Except my phone is going to die soon so I can probably get my own survival supplies myself while I brace emotionally for calling the 1-800 number again for the 6th time, after I got hung up on once, transferred 8 times and then shuttled off to Jorge in Tijuana before I hung up to start over on my own prerogative earlier.

Well, all's well that ends well, right? Or never ends...It is now a quarter til six and I just got off the phone. I still have to complete a 2 page affidavit and scrounge up a proof of purchase (because I am SURE I saved that since March) and upload it all to the insurance company so they can replace the iPad. Please tell me it's worth it. Please tell me the zombies are coming soon.

#wineme


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