Phone icks

 I have just read that President Trump cancelled Kamela Harris’s protection. What a small-minded, nasty person he is. I choose the adjective carefully; I note that it is one he uses about Canadian trade regulations he dislikes – supply management, I believe.  If anything happens to that lovely woman because she is vulnerable to crazy people, it will be the first of the crazy people who caused it, most likely. Nasty does not begin to cover it. Sorry. I do not usually get into political comment here, but this one gets me. It is one thing to pull Bolton’s protection; at least he has some training in defence.  It annoys me more than the British government pulling Prince Harry’s guards when he had very young children. We all know and read about crazy attacks, regularly, and I can only surmise that Trump is so small-minded and vindictive that he actually wants something to happen to those people on his ‘bad’ list.

Anyway. Rant of the day. On to other matters. That also matter. 

I am crouched in my birthday present office chair, more than a little shaky, having just dealt with – well, sort of dealt with – a repair company for our refrigerator’s problem icemaker. It will not turn on. The operation required me to call their call centre, where I reached someone who was not only not IN Canada, she had, pretty obviously, never heard of Canada. Highly accented English in a very high voice. I did get it through to her that we have a refrigerator under warranty. She started looking for a repair facility by postal code and offered me one in Toronto. Um, we live a five hour drive from Toronto. She put me on hold and never came back. After some coffee and headbanging, I started over. This time I got a young man, also accented, who issued me a ‘ticket’. Nothing further ensued.

Ten days went by.

So, today I started over. At least I had the ‘ticket’ number and a phone number that produced a North American voice that I could hear. After a long, long time on hold – with music – I was told I would get an email. Amazingly, it came almost immediately. On receipt of the email, I was instructed to call and get a time for the repair appointment. I was also to email the purchase proof. I did that.

After I did that, I called as instructed and got another call centre. The repair company is Ontario-wide and has hired an incompetent moron for its call desk. We went back and forth a lot and I got more music while she researched the second ticket. She wanted to know where the email came from that asked me for the purchase proof.  Really? I told her. More music. Then she wanted my cell phone number. I use a land line, miss. We sorted that and I promised to stay close to my land line all day tomorrow. I put the phone down, carefully, into its rest. And, finally I got a third email saying that I would get a telephone call tomorrow to schedule the appointment.  

As I write this all out, I am beginning to see the funny side, but only to the gentle smile level. 

You know that trope about ‘what do you do all day, dear’? 

Yeah, for some reason my dear husband tasks me to make these calls. I really considered the adjective in the previous sentence before choosing to use it.