FREE AT LAST I normally don’t post deeply personal or political things on Facebook. I had to make an exception in this instance. After many years of giving my all, and getting nothing back but excuses, neglect, and mistreatment, I finally said “goodbye” to the responsible party who I’d had spent every night in my bedroom with, since I moved to New York, 24 years ago. Just like the movie, “Enough”, I had to be like J-lo, strap on the gloves, and stop the abuse. Never again would I pour money and attention into this destructive relationship, just so I could have access to my lying, gold-digging whore’s little box of pleasure which I craved every night. That sweet, sweet, box that had turned me out ooooooooh, so many times, but had always left me broke and broken. New Yorkers; you all know her. While I was out doing shows at night, she was probably in your bedroom, doing you. Her name is Time Warner Cable. If you don’t know Time Warner Cable here is a little intel for you, in case she comes knocking at your door, talking that smack: “Hey I got a nice, tight, little package you’re gonna like. Perfect for a bad boy like you who needs to be punished.” Don’t get sapped by the silky words and false promises! TWC is a straight up criminal organization whose executives may as well be wrestling naked in a Brooklyn banya, their backs covered with the Russian mob tattoos that detail all their crimes, in this case, repeated financial rape against the population of this great city. The only things missing when they step out of their innocuous little vans wearing their homey little uniforms is Wagner playing a soundtrack, Don King haircuts, and a trail of cloven hoof-prints. But at least Don King and Russian mobsters are on time, right? One would think with all the millions TWC rakes in, somebody in that organization would be able to afford to buy a watch and a gps for the technicians who can’t find an address they’ve been to on twenty previous occasions, or who show up 4 hours late (if at all), to an appointment made three months back. I use the words “appointment” and “time”, loosely, as TWC has no concept of either’s definition. The word “appointment” means parties meet at a scheduled time which almost never, ever, happens with this guys, probably because that time is always “sometime between the hours of 10 am and 5 pm” which isn’t really a time, it’s an era, in the golden age of utter incompetence, which TWC will always be known as having dominated in the annals of World history. Greeks-Parthenon, Egyptians-mathematics, Romans-plumbing, TWC-Rampant Continuous Urban Sodomy. The irony of it all is that the word “Time” is in their title. If they are never actually on time, then “time” must be referring to the feeling their customers experience as they carve notches in the wall with shiv’s made from melted toothbrushes, while waiting on the phone to talk to a TWC representative because some shit isn’t working, AGAIN. You get put on hold on a TWC call, well, it’s a good time to pick up a thesaurus and memorize everything in it. The cafeteria on the Amistad has better customer service. Think about the quality of what you are paying one hundred plus dollars a month for; my service had so many interruptions/ periods where it simply didn’t work, I actually got nostalgic for my days working with the Peace Corps in Guatemala, where everything electrical was hooked up to an old generator by the well, cranked by a guy with one arm and no shoes. That thing was more reliable than this billion dollar corporation, although, I suspect, that if the curtains were ever pulled back, like on The Wizard Of Oz, the whole scam deluxe, is being run by a car battery, atop a cracked milk crate, next a guy with a George Bush hair cut, making it rain on himself. TWC, like any infamous pimp, carny barker, or con-man, will make you question truth and reality. Take for instance, the phrase: “free upgrade”, in the last conversation we had, aka, the straw that gave the camel scoliosis. “Mr. Benny, are you enjoying your free upgrade after installing your new box?” “I’d like to, but I seem to be having two distinct problems with it” “Oh, what is the nature of those problems? “Well the nature of them is this: one, this upgraded box works even worse than what I had previously, so by definition is not really an upgrade, more of how would you say, a downgrade? Two, my bill now has a mysterious added monthly charge since the free upgrade was installed, so then the upgrade isn’t really free, is it?” “No sir, you misinterpreted that. While the upgrade is free, there is an associated service fee, which applies to the extra service but not the actual upgrade. You are free to choose whether you want to it or not. With your current contract you are not bound to take the service, it is up to you, thus it is your choice, which is free. That’s what we meant when we say free.” “Aaaaah. My bad. I didn’t realize my cable company was a think tank for existential philosophical conundrums. America is indeed the land of the free, not the free of charge. Maybe it’s a better idea for me just to get my old box back; it worked 50% of the time as opposed to the 35% of the time this new one works” “I’m sorry Mr. Benny, that box doesn’t exist anymore” “Doesn’t exist? Gone forever? There isn’t a stack of like, 100 of those things in a back room somewhere in the building you are calling me from?” “Its no longer available” “So it does exist, you just won’t give it back to me?” “Technically, that is not my department. That is an inventory issue. I do know that it isn’t available and that we are only issuing the new boxes” “So, then I actually have no choice after all, in choosing this free upgraded box which isn’t free and isn’t an upgrade? Because if I did have a choice I’d choose to have my old, less shitty, box back. Or maybe, like you initially said, the old box never really existed at all; it was part of a hallucination I was experiencing due to sleep deprivation from repeatedly waiting for a technician to show up to fix a recurring problem. Maybe you are not even a Time Warner employee at all, but a dream catcher in a phantom tollbooth, wearing Lawrence Fishbourne Matrix sunglasses through which you can see that my whole life is a lie” “I’m sorry sir, I’m not sure what that means” “I don’t know either so here’s something more concrete; if I pay for cable to work 100 % of the time, but it only works 35% of the time, can I get a credit for the 65% of the time it doesn’t work, which I paid 100% for including a free upgrade which wasn’t free?” “You can get a credit sir, you just have to have any outstanding service issues verified by a technician within thirty days of that service issue. Would you like to make an appointment?” “Honestly no, but practically, yes. Can he come tomorrow?” “I’m sorry, but only certain qualified technicians deal with credit issues, and the technicians who deal with credit issues are booked up for the next six to eight weeks. Would you like an appointment in six weeks?” “But that is past the thirty day window to receive a credit, right?” “That is correct, but I could let you know if an appointment opens up before then, as there are often fallouts. You would just have to be home between the hours of 10 am and 5 pm.” “When?” “Everyday” “So stay home everyday and wait by the phone to maybe get a free appointment to have someone come in and validate that my cable, which is not working…is not working?” “Yes, except the free appointment will have a related service charge as credit related service falls out of the range of normal service. You can, however, call a representative, after the service, and request to have the charged waived” “I’d like to make another request” “Yes?” “Can I put my penis in your coffee cup?” And with that, ladies and gentleman, like Django, I broke the chains which bound me, packed that little plastic box into a shopping bag, and dropped it off, at the Time Warner building on 5th Avenue. It was an amazing moment. I was finally free, and it cost me nothing! Well, except for a 35 dollar surcharge because I’d forgotten to bring the remote control that my dog, Grits had partially chewed.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:57:58 +0000
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