Some of you already know that my iPhone went by the way of the wind yesterday. I've been depressed every since. As I let my iPhone connection die, I cried and I curled into a little ball on the floor of my computer room while sucking my thumb for a bit. Well, not really, but I the thought DID cross my mind for a moment.
It's been months since I received consistent phone calls, voicemails, and emails that actually had a connection attached to them, and since Julian's fall from a skateboard that resulted in a concussion a short time ago, which I ranted about here, that moment was the last straw for me. AT&T can screw with me, but NOT with my kids in an emergency!
I had only a week and a half to go after that incident before my contract with AT&T ended. My pleas from my son that day did not fall on deaf ears anymore as I made my plans to sever my ties with AT&T, thus ending my self-made addiction to my iPhone (well.... there are the apps and iPod I can still use).
I am deeply, deeply in love with my iPhone, as I am with practically everything Steve Jobs invents from those brain cells that have not been affected by his recent ailments which include pancreatic cancer. He is my techo-God these days! But his major blunder was getting into bed with AT&T and a lot of iPhone users have suffered from it.
If they didn't, then tell my why the epidemic of unlocking and jailbreaking iPhone's is going on. It's so bad that they hired a hacker who was responsible for starting the first iPhone "worm". Keep them enemies closer dude!
I admit that I made a major faux pas regarding last months bill. Instead of marking November 1st on bill pay for my bank accounts bill pay to pay the phone bill, I inadvertently scheduled it for December 1st instead. Maybe my brain was already on the Christmas holidays and how much I was gonna drain from the bank accounts this year in order to make the rugrats believe all is normal in la-la land and the economy is really not coming to a screeching halt into dead zone and we're all gonna die cause we can't shop at Whole Foods anymore!
My fault - me bad!
But what was so damn ironic is that they cut the phone off (which was turned back on yesterday when the automatic payment hit them), and suddenly there was the phone call AND the voicemail from 2 FREAKING WEEKS AGO, that my phone bill was past due.
The brick wall of frustration hit me at that point. Divorce was imminent!
So I did the unthinkable; I went to the "Dark Side" of cellular service. See, every since I saw an episode of Clark Howard (a.k.a., "Superman" of everyday consumer economics), on CNN a few weeks ago, I have been completely intrigued/so excited I could pee in my pants, about Wal-Mart's new cell phone that has unlimited minutes, texts, and data service for a rock bottom price of $45 a month! That's a deal I could live with! So I did the unthinkable!
"She didn't!"
"She did."
"She did NOT!"
"Oh yes she did."
"She did?"
"She DID!"
I did by gosh! I was so infuriated by that phone call lost in fiber optic AT&T space about my missed payment AND the emergency phone calls that never reached me after Julian was injured, that I got in my in my half-defunct Odyssey and drove myself into enemy territory: WAL-MART TERRITORY!
I grabbed my basket and headed right down the aisle to..... the hair care department. Since I was there, I might as well go ahead and snag myself a bottle of SunIn cause it's my hair color of choice every since a year of highlights fried my hair to extra-crispy and this stuff seems to do the job without creating hay out of hair and one could hear its crispy texture from across the house during styling moments.
NOW I was on my way to the electronics department to ask about this unbelievable deal on a cell phone plan. It's as simple as Clark Howard says: pick a phone between $39 and $99, purchase a $45 card, and I'm good to go! Now at the first of the month, I pay no more than that $45 and I can yack to anyone just before my lips fall off without worrying if AT&T is gonna be standing behind me with a stopwatch monitoring every second that I use while calculating the profit as they go.
I miss my iPhone tremendously right now, but the peace of mind that has been replaced has lifted a huge communication burden off my shoulders. Now I know that when the kids call, their call will actually get through to me. I know cause I've been testing it like crazy since yesterday afternoon!
Now came the call to AT&T to explain the why's and reasons that I was breaking up with them after a long and painful relationship. Never talk to just a "Customer Representative"; you gotta ask/demand for the supervisor right from the beginning on this one. Screaming helps sometimes too, but luckily, it was not necessary today.
I explained my long horrid story. I explained the months/years of abuse I had received at the hands of AT&T (where's the shelter for people like us?), and I finished off with the story of my son laying on a concrete tennis court unable to reach his mother in his time of need because of their lousy service.
I said that AT&T should actually pay ME for all the abuse I've suffered. She replied that she would immediately erase my bill for the month.
NOW I get service! Well, at least some service.
If she did this AND could personally guarantee that I would receive phone calls/voicemails/emails from here on out, I would have stayed. But she's just a supervisor of many and even she has her limitations in this corporate monstrosity.
It may not be an iPhone with all the bells, whistles, and addictions I'm accustomed to these days, but at least my kids can be rest assured that when they call Mom, they can actually "Reach Out and Touch Someone" this time.
