Good Charlotte

For my girls…a weekend in review. Overheard in the Volvo, the Palm and on the mean streets of Myers Park:

• It’s Birthday Pigtail Day! But yes, you do have a rat tail.
• Hey Sexy, can I just park my mannis?
• We found out that my pig, Stanky, had a thyroid problem. That’s why her fat hung down over her hooves.
• My OCD is a little different from yours…it involves numbers and counting. Yes, like Rain Man.
• Look, we’ll demonstrate the Double Orgasm move for you. Just watch.
• Ohhhh, I didn’t know we were in the juniors department. No wonder those shirts didn’t fit my boobs.
• What?! You don’t do that?! What do you do? Oh, you do that. Huh.
• Do you think they make press-on toenails? Maybe I should paint my band-aid.
• Well, it wasn’t a total disaster. But she looked like Amy Winehouse, and I can’t take make-up advice from someone who looks that terrible. Hmm, point taken.
• Can I live in your Garage Mahal? Thaaaaanks.
• I’ll take the Tease Not Tart, please.
• No, I don’t want a cocktail. I JUST WANT SOME BREAD.
• She played concert piano in college, really she did!
• Hey Glenn, wanna see our Laverne & Shirley move?

Customer service on a good day

This is my ode to Sylvester, the nicest man on the planet. Yesterday I called Alltel about our cell phone service, and how I’m basically tired of paying out the nose for not the greatest features. We’ve been customers for a lot of years, and every time we go to the Alltel store in town, the most evil devil creatures crawl out of their dungeons to welcome us to hell. In actuality, what they do is take your nice, pleasant life, turn it into a load of crap, and then crap on the pile of crap you already had.

Over the weekend (which you’ll read about later, I promise), I was talking to my friend Andrea about her service, and she mentioned that instead of going into a store, she just called and got great service over the phone and a lower bill. So of course I do the same thing, and BEHOLD! I met Sylvester. Sylvester and I went through the last few months of cell phone bills and we (rather, he) discovered that we’ve been duped since 2001. The jackass that signed us up for our service years ago, in the cell phone dark ages, gave us all these “services” we didn’t need, and we’ve been paying for them ever since. And every time I’ve gone into a store to ask if there’s a better plan for our needs, I’ve been told “nope, get the hell out and don’t come back.”

But then…I met Sylvester. Sylvester took 37 minutes out of his day to spend with me, and we found a new, cheaper plan that offers twice the number of services for a much lower price. Sylvester, every month when I get my bill, I will think of the love I have for you and those special 37 minutes that we shared. When I have extra money leftover at the end of the month, I will silently thank you for being so rad.

I have to wonder, though: why can I get better service over the phone than in person? Isn’t the American opinion of telemarketers generally horrible? Isn’t that why the Do-Not-Call list was put into place? If I have to get on the phone, spell out my name and address to some robot, wait on hold for 10 minutes and listen to the recording telling me that my phone call will be monitored for quality assurance, just to get good service, then why can’t I get the same thing in the store?

Riddle me that, and I’ll give you a cookie.