Our home phone line was having problems a few days ago. When someone called, our phone would ring once and then nothing more. Even the answering machine wouldn’t pick up. So I called AT&T to get some repair service.

Through the push-button choices, I chose to talk to an agent. After a minute on hold, an agent answered. I told her my phone problem and she said she’d put me through to the repair department. While on hold, waiting for them, the agent gave me a sales spiel.

She asked me about having repair insurance, and explained AT&T’s deal. I said, “No thanks.”

She asked me about Internet service, and explained AT&T’s deal. I said, “No thanks.”

She asked me if anyone in my family needed wireless service, and explained AT&T’s deal. I said, “No thanks.”

She said we were still on hold for the repair department – “I’m keeping an eye on it.” I thought it odd to be on hold like this (the agent continuing to talk to me), and soon I came to not believe it.

Then she asked me to rate her customer service: satisfied or very satisfied (apparently it’s not an option to be less than satisfied).

I said, “Satisfied.”

She said, “You’re not very satisfied?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m not talking to the repair department yet.”

“Yes sir,” she said, “we should be through to them in only another minute. Is there anything I could have done or can do to make your experience with AT&T customer service very satisfied?”

I said: “I can’t think of anything other than get me through to the repair department.”

She said: “OK. Just for clarity, if during your call, you get asked to rate customer service, the question is only for your dealings with me.”

I said: “OK”

I was put on hold. About 2 seconds later, another woman answered and introduced herself as the previous woman’s supervisor. She wanted to ask me why I wasn’t very satisfied with her handling of my call. She said they strive for very satisfied.

I said: “Well, I need my phone line repaired, and that’s not exactly something she can help me with.”

She said: “I understand. Is there anything we can do to make your experience with us very satisfied?”

I laughed out loud, and said: “I still need my phone line repaired. I could talk to the repair department.”

She agreed to put me through to the repair department, but before letting me go she reminded me that if I get asked to rate customer service, the question only pertains to my dealings with the previous representative.

At last, I was put through to the repair department. But I only got a computer wanting me to give my phone number and answer yes or no questions. At one point when I was trying to give my phone number, the computer cut me off with, “You have answered that you wish to discontinue this phone call . . .”

“No,” I said. Fortunately I wasn’t disconnected.

In the end, the computer told me that it has determined there is a problem with our phone line, and a service person will come out to fix it. It should be fixed a week from tomorrow. Oh great. A week without a home phone.

Fortunately, a couple days later our phone line was working fine. They must have fixed it.

Then a couple more days later the AT&T repair man called our home phone. He mentioned the repair ticket he had, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with our line. I told him that it started working properly a couple days ago, and I just assumed they had fixed it.

He said maybe they had fixed it, but the repair ticket was still open. I told him all was well, and he closed the ticket.

So I’m not sure what to think of my experience with getting repair work from AT&T. The initial phone call and dealing with customer service was hilarious, and my dealing with the repair department was only through an automated system. But the line got fixed in a couple of days and the repair man called personally to check up on it. In the end, the result left me very satisfied. Ironic.

Bullgrit

As kids, my brother and I had this strange desire to scare (startle) each other, as often as possible, in new and funny ways. I think it’s a genetic thing; our granddaddy was big on scaring people. But I think it must skip generations, because I don’t remember our dad being particularly interested in scaring us, and my boys don’t like to be startled. 

Our granddaddy would poke us with his finger and make a sound with his lips — a sound I can’t think of how to describe in writing — to make us jump and scream. The start always made us, and anyone watching, laugh.

I remember standing with my dad beside my grandaddy’s casket, looking down on his still form. I whispered to Dad, “I almost expect him to open his eyes and poke us to scare us.” My dad laughed and agreed.

Anyway, so my brother and I were in a constant state of scare war. We might go months without a good scare on one or the other, but there was never a formal truce. The delay was all part of the set up.

Off the top of my head, right now, I can remember twice that I really scared him, and once that he really scared me, but I know there were many other attacks.

I once hid in his room, between his bed and the back wall for over an hour waiting for him to come to bed for the night. (He was around 8 or 9 years old.) Eventually he came into his room. He put on his pajamas, turned out the light, and got under his covers. After a couple minutes, I reached up from behind his bed and grabbed him. Oh God! He jumped and screamed like a professional horror movie actress.

Another time I scared him was a pure scare of opportunity — I needed no preparation. He was watching a scary movie late at night (after 11:00 — he was probably 11 or 12 years old), sitting cross-legged on the floor about 3 feet from the console TV. The whole house was dark, and he was totally engrossed with the movie. I picked up a toy rubber aligator (about 8-10 inches long), snuck up the hall and tossed it at my brother. The little lizard plopped perfectly right down on his lap. Oh, the jump and scream — pure entertainment for a teenage big brother.

But if I’m remembering correctly, my little brother got the last scare and laugh on me. I was in my bedroom with the door closed, minding my own business. A light knock on my door brought me to open it.

My brother had acquired a family Halloween decoration: a posable life-sized skeleton. When I opened the door, he wiggled the skeleton and made some noise. The flailing bones, the evilly grinning skull, and the moan or whatever sound, startled the T-total Hell out of me. I screamed and jump backwards all the way across my room.

Life’s evolution had me moving out of home soon after that, so my brother and I really didn’t have any other opportunities to scare one another since then. I kind of miss the whole scare war. Cowgrit is easy to startle, and she doesn’t like to be. My boys get very angry with me if I scare them. It seems that I’m going to have to wait till my boys have children of their own (to pass on that generation skipping gene) for me to be able to have appreciative targets for terror.

Bullgrit

Left of the door is a dresser for Calfgrit8, on which there is:
a large blue lamp
a fish bowl full of sea shells
a fish bowl full of rocks
a piggy bank
an assortment of Lego pieces

Above the dresser is a corkboard full of tacked up pictures, paper crafts, and a Spider-Man calendar. Above the board are large, fabric letters spelling out both boys’ names.

On the other side of the dresser is a trash can and a dirty clothes hamper with a shirt sleeve hanging out. On the floor, in front of the hamper is a pair of underwear and pajama bottoms.

Right of the door is a bookshelf packed with probably 50 thin books. On top of the shelf is a sloppy stack of at least a dozen more books, a plastic box full of Pokemon cards, and a white sock (is it clean or dirty?).

Next is a chest of drawers for Calfgrit4, on which there is:
a wood coin bank
a wooden train with CG4’s name spelled out
a craft necklace
a few Lego pieces

Next is a kid-sized table against the corner, with two kid-sized chairs, on which is a large assortment of Lego pieces from probably ten different sets.

On the right wall is a large abstract painting of a lion (this is a sweet picture, but it really looks out of place among all the other decor) and a large framed poster of Spider-Man surrounded by all his villains (this more fits in with the other things in the room).

The far wall has a large box window, with hundreds of Lego pieces and random small toys completely covering the sill seat.

Next is the multi-colored toy box with small shelves above it, all filled with a random assortment of medium and small toys.

The toy box sits up against the bunk beds. The lower bunk, Calfgrit4’s bed, has Spider-Man stickers on the back wall, a tractor and truck blanket, and about a dozen stuffed animals. The biggest stuffed animal is a horse as big as its owner.

The upper bunk, Calfgrit8’s bed, has a poster of Star Wars Lego characters on the wall, a dinosaur blanket, and probably 20 stuffed animals. The biggest stuffed animal is a brown bear as big as CG8’s little brother.

Slid partially out from under the bed is a box of Bionicle action figures. The room floor is mostly clear, but there is a Bionacle, a clone trooper action figure, and several loose pieces of Lego scattered about.

The last wall has two doors for the closet. One door is halfway open, revealing a shelf of various games.

The room, as a whole, is in what we consider a “moderately neat” state. It can get far messier, and anything neater lasts only about 20 minutes. When I look at their room, I often wonder what about it they are going to remember most fondly.

Bullgrit

Continued from yesterday.

Circa 1984: My psycho friend and I managed to talk our junior-year English teacher into letting us both read and report on the novelized version of The Empire Strikes Back. The gimmick she suggested (since we both, of course, had seen the movie just a few years earlier) would be for us to do our reports as a competition. We should both prepare a list of questions to ask the other one, and after our “reports,” the class would vote for who won.

Now remember, all you kiddies who’ve grown up in the age of VCRs, laser disk players, DVD players, and movies on demand: such devices were not common in the early 80s. And even if someone we knew had one, ESB was not released for viewing for several years after it was in theaters. And even after it was released, it was like searching for the Holy Grail to find any of the Star Wars movies on the movie rental shelf (read: convenience store shelf).

So, understand that our book reports would have to honestly come from reading the book — it had been 4 years since we saw the movie, only 2 or 3 times.

I read the book a couple times and made many notes about the plot, people, places, and things. I made a list of a dozen questions I thought could stump psycho friend in our competition. He and I didn’t talk about the book or movie with each other for a couple weeks. Then the date of the book reports came.

He and I stood at two podiums at the front of the classroom. We both had note cards and memories in order for the bout. Although my opponent considered me a friend (even though he had threatened me with a knife a couple years earlier), I considered him a jackhole that I wanted to nail to the wall with tough questions.

How long after Star Wars was The Empire Strikes Back set? [Everyone still knew the first movie as just “Star Wars.”]

Who was the general leading the AT-AT walker force invading Hoth?

What is standard Imperial procedure before jumping to hyperspace?

What kind of creature attacked Luke on Hoth?

What is the name of Darth Vader’s flag ship star destroyer?

Name three of the bounty hunters Darth Vader was talking to on his ship? [One name is a gimme.]

What is carbonite usually used for?

What substance did Cloud City mine?

What were C3PO’s first words after Chewbacca turned him back on after finding him in the junk pile?

That last one was directed at me. I answered, “Stormtroopers? Oh no!”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly right. I missed a couple of inconsequential words, but my psycho opponent played up the error very well. “Ooooh, nope, that’s not right. It was . . . .” I still can’t remember what the exact words were — and I just saw the movie again with Calfgrit8 two weeks ago. (I now have a mental block about that scene, C3PO’s lines now just sound like warbled gibberish every time I see the movie.)

That was the only question between us that either of us failed to answer exactly right. We both had that story nigh perfectly memorized, and it greatly annoyed me that he asked me to exactly quote a line from the book. It’s one thing to know a character name, a plot element, and such, but really, he asked me to exactly quote a single, unimportant line.

After our competition, the class voted for who won. Because only one question was missed, by me, my psycho friend was the victor.

I was unhappy.

My opponent managed to mention that victory every once in a while for the next year. He found ways to work it into completely unrelated conversations. If he had been a true friend (one who doesn’t chase you around the kitchen table with a butcher knife), I would have taken it all as fun ribbing. But since I had a real dislike for him by that time, every mention of my loss at his hands rankled me to no end.

Since then, I’ve tended to avoid competition with people I dislike. Even with things I’m sure I could win over them, it’s just not worth the potential of having to lose against someone who would love to rub in my face. So if you know me, and I’m willing to be competitive with you, you know I like you.

Bullgrit