The FORTRESS of SOLITUDE

^or
Cafe du Crackberry

^A.K.A
The 3 Day Rape Session Afforded Me By Rogers

As Ms. Swan CRANED her neck to look back at us, she screeched, "Why you HIT me?!" Despite my entirely fucked up state, I came seconds away from hollering, "Coz you got in my WAY, BITCH!" I didn't, thankfully. I told her to pull into the parking lot she felt was so important to turn into only moments earlier and we followed. The entire time, though, Ms. Swan had a stern look on her face like we were gonna cut and run.

I did actually consider it, I'll be honest. But, I'm a good boy (at least behind the wheel) so I turned in behind her. I was still frazzled, but this woman waiting in the drive-thru line at the McDonald's yelled over, "If you guys need a witness, I saw the whole thing." She pulled out of line and came over to us.
At this point, Miss Swan was fully out of her car, and grabbing her neck. You know, like what happens when you're in a REAL accident. I apologized at least 5 times and the witness came over to help. Turns out she is a former Accident Adjuster so we couldn't have had a better person there to guide us through the process. Unfortunately, I was inconsolable and let T handle the entire affair after handing him my license. I phoned the Zipcar people and they told me everything that had to be done.
Ms. Swan and T exchanged information (the entire time, alternating between craning her neck to look at the horrific damage to her bumper and then grabbing her neck in extreme pain). The more she grabbed her neck, the more I freaked out with Judge Judy's back catalogue of episodes running through my head. I'm going to get sued. I'm going to get sued. Turns out you can't do that in Canada unless you don't have insurance, so YAY Canuckistan!
Anyway, we eventually headed off, found the Wal-Mart and bought the PS3. We returned home without incident and set the thing up.

Then we come to Saturday. I'm sitting in my living room, drinking coffee out of my Bodum and playing PS3. My blackberry was sitting on the coffee table too, out of it's leather holster. However I managed it, I'm not sure, but the next thing I knew, there was coffee everywhere. It hit the PS3 controller, it hit my remotes and it hit my blackberry. I grabbed the PS3 controller and ran to get a towel. I wiped it off and it seemed no worse for wear. As I returned to the living room, though, I could see the blackberry submerged under an ocean of coffee...
I wiped it off, shook it out and tried to use it; it seemed ok. The more I fiddled, though, the more I realized that hitting the "S" on the keyboard gave you a "U" and an "O" - shit. I headed off to the Rogers store near my building to see what could be done. I was in luck - turns out they had a used one (used for about half an hour) that they could give me for $250. Expensive, but fuck...I'm committed to a year long blackberry information plan so to not buy one would be a waste of money (or would it? I still haven't figured out that one in my head). In any event, they were going to sell it to me but couldn't because the SKU code hadn't been entered into the system. I asked how long that would take and the nice girl at the desk phoned the Helpdesk at Rogers right there and then and put through the order. I was overly anxious to get the thing replaced since i didn't have a phone to use in the meantime except for my old cellphone which had no address book (relatively useless). She told me it would be done by that evening and she took my name and number, placed them on the blackberry box and said she would call me when it was put in but that if I didn't hear anything, it would be done by the morning. Fine.
I went home and got no call. The next morning, I tried calling the store, but couldn't get an answer. I got ready and headed out to the Rogers store again. I arrived and asked if I could pick up the blackberry they had on hold for me. I gave the girl my name and she found it in the cupboard. Unfortunately, when she went to ring it in, the code had not been entered yet. *GRUMBLE*
I told her what the girl from yesterday had told me and said girl happened to be in the store. She walked over and said, "Yeah, I guess it's not in yet."
"Oh, ok...?" I replied
"Yeah, it probably won't be in until Monday."
"Monday's a holiday."
"Oh yeah...I guess Tuesday then."
"I see."
"Yeah, check back on Tuesday."
"You told me yesterday that it would be entered by this morning."
"Yeah, it should go in sometime today. You can try calling back."
"Okidoke! Thanks for your help!" (BITCH)

I returned home and phoned a couple of hours later. A gentleman answered the phone and I told him the whole story.
"Oh, the used blackberry?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Yeah, you can buy that outright at anytime for $550."
"Ok...well, they told me $250 or so and that I couldn't buy it at any time because the sku code wasn't in the system."
"No, not $250. $550 and you can pick it up at any time."
"Why was I told a completely different story?"
"I'm not sure, sir, but you can buy it any time."
"Well, your helpful staff told me that I couldn't and I've been without a phone for two days because of their misinformation."
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know how that happened, but I assure you you can buy it at anytime for $550."
"Thanks so much."

I got on my bike and headed over. It was around 4 or so and the sky was the colour of black sackcloth. The heavens were planning on opening up at any moment. As I locked my bike, the rain began. Fucking. Hell.
I walked into the store and plunked down $620 for a new blackberry. Excessive? Certainly. Necessary? Absolutely not. Right decision? Prolly not. Am I happy with it? Indeed.

I returned home in an absolute downpour and applied analgesic cream to my ravaged anus.

Categories: Miscellaneous