Can You Hear Me Now?

Welcome to the cellular complaint hotline! Today’s first question comes from Tammy in Tampico.

Tammy says, “My cell phone service stinks. I have to stand out in the front lawn to make a call. What should I do?”

Well Tammy, it’s funny you should ask because the cellular complaint hotline had that very same problem. At the time we were an AT&T customer. Our phones simply wouldn’t work inside the office.

Step A: Being polite but firm is always a good idea.

But in this day and age, get real. When dealing with cellular providers, you should quickly move on to;

Step B: become a relentless psychotic.

The cellular complaint hotline called AT&T repeatedly, and we even threatened to cancel our cell phone service. We may also have inadvertently cursed out some of the representatives. And of course, when that didn’t work, we insisted on speaking to supervisors! Eventually, after we yelled ourselves hoarse, AT&T gave us a brand new phone. We did this twice because the new phones didn’t worked either.

Step C: change your cellular carrier.

The consumer complaint hotline switched to Verizon. Wouldn’t you know it; with our new Verizon phone we still couldn’t make calls from inside of the office. And on top of that, the phone wouldn’t hold a charge. After repeating Step B several times a supervisor finally explained the problem. In areas with poor reception, cell phones sometimes use up extra energy trying to pull in a signal. And that’s why our battery kept dying! The good folks here at the consumer complaint hotline felt kind of guilty about getting those free phones when the real problem was the fact that the consumer complaint hotline is located at the bottom of a gully no cell phone signal could ever reach. Excuse me. I have to go out on the front lawn to repeat Step B and probably Step C. I hear Sprint is offering special rates on new phones!

Copyright 2009

All rights reserved

No part can be reprinted or reused in any way without express written permission from the author.

You Lucky #%@&^%$

I’ve been thinking about luck. Our society is obsessed with luck or the lack of it. Luck pervades our language. There's a Lucky Magazine, Lucky Brand Jeans, and Lucky Charms Cereal. We thank our lucky stars. Some people have all the luck! There’s even the luck of the Irish. You can smoke Lucky Strikes. In China, they sell “Double Lucky” cigarettes. All those Chinese lung cancer patients must think they’re double lucky. Some people would rather be lucky than good. I'll bet most of those people just aren’t very good.
There’s Lady Luck. Of course, it’s mostly us guys who are always dreaming about getting “lucky”. And when your buddy scores, what do you say? “You lucky dog!” “Luck” is the phrase that pays in many social settings. When somebody gets fired you wish them "good luck" in the future. When somebody gets married: what do you say? “Good luck!” Today a friend e-mailed me a photo titled “one lucky dude”. My computer wouldn’t open the attachment. I never get a lucky break.
I played some of those scratch off lottery games and actually won. The prize was two more scratch off lottery tickets. Yep, they were both losers. Lotteries are scurrilous because they somehow seem winnable. Nobody notices those 4-bazzilion to one odds. Almost everybody knows somebody whose cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s hairdresser won a bundle. It’s that six degrees of separation that makes winning seem possible—except if you play the lottery, you’ll be separated from your money.
Most people know this. My wife Trina is always telling me that lotteries are a tax on stupid people. But every time that jackpot gets up around 230 million, I get stupid. Again. I just gotta buy a couple of those Power Ball tickets. All you need is a dollar and a dream! Yeehaw. Easy Street here I come…
And what about the lucky few who really do win the lottery? In 2002, Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr. won the largest single-payout jackpot of all time. Andy took home a cool $114 million after taxes. Lucky stiff. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but you can pick your own kind of misery. It appears Andy did just that. Since winning that jackpot he’s been plagued by personal and legal troubles. DUI arrests, deaths in the family, an ugly divorce.
According to the Associated Press, a man named Michel Horton is a study in dumb luck. In the span of 10 days, Horton won two new cars. After reading that I started feeling lucky myself. Just this morning, I found a dime and four pennies lying on the street. One of the pennies is a 1948 wheat sheaf design. Trina is pretty excited. She thinks it’s probably worth a penny and a half.
Some people are convinced they can actually change their luck. They carry rabbit’s feet. (Those rabbits sure weren’t very lucky.) People collect charms, magical amulets and even pay good money for “lucky numbers”. Some travel to Vegas and bet the ranch on Lucky 7. Me, I think I’ll settle for happy go lucky. Yeah, I know… Good luck with that.

Copyright 2009

All rights reserved

No part can be reprinted or reused in any way without express written permission from the author.