Creative Endeavors

Ordered a couple of DVD’s from Best Buy yesterday, for the convenience of not having to contend with traffic, I used the Internet. I don’t know why, just thought it would be easier than driving out to the store.

Next time, I will drive out to the store.

First thing that went wrong was the telephone number, it wanted an “additional number” and I did not have one. So I finally gave them 910-555-1212 and that ended that “mini crisis.” The telephone number came off the Rockford Files or some other TV show that I have long since forgotten.

Then I was dropped into email hell, give, give, give until it hurts.  Why do they need my email, I mean Jeeze Louise, they have the @@#@#^**! phone number.  America has gone nuts.  Why do people at the do-nut shop give me a receipt, why does Radio Shack need my name to sell me batteries.  I am tiring of folks “extorting” my email and other information in order to make the sale.  You are literally NOT allowed to make the purchase online at Best Buy until you provide them with this information.

I am sick of this garbage.

Then like I said, it got hung up on the E-mail thing, it wanted this and it wanted it that, and generally speaking it was a pain in the part of you that goes over the fence last.

“It” was not good to me yesterday.

The last thing I need is for someone to pound me with what I call “email crap” that is not related to my order and that certainly disgusts me, I don’t need even more email. I just need the DVD’s and next time I will drive to the store.  At this juncture in time I was told to please print out your receipt … Yeah, like that dog is gonna hunt?

THREE PAGES LATER it printed out my receipt.

Wednesday! Hump Day for a five day a week, minimum wage slave in Oklahoma. I find myself gleefully spending many, many hours searching the Web these days. Here is a breakdown on my time this week.

(A) Typing insanely complex web addresses and demands for even more info … 2%

(B) Waiting for what seems like three years (21 on a dog) for the page to even come up … 93%

(C) Reading snippy little messages and dialogue boxes that say there is NO such address … 2%

(D) Retyping insanely complex web addresses … 2%

(E) Actually reading a message on a web page … 1%

Most of these pages I am discovering have been non-existent since 1996 anyway.

Then the insane emails begin. This is the web administrator (which is an oxymoron if I ever heard one) It is now my duty to inform you that this is your third offense. You have repeatedly tried (in vain, much to our utter glee and enjoyment) to access this site with negative results. I am afraid, because of your persistent attempts at retrieving this information, we are now going to pronounce maximum sentence on you.”

So I gravitate to the box marked “stupid web browser and/or credit card purchaser” and I type. “No, No! Not that”, and I hit reply.

Almost instantly my reply is forthcoming (well it was about thirty minutes to tell the truth) and it is again from the website administrator, It has come to our attention that you furnished to us a bogus secondary telephone number and we are now going to force one or both of your parents to sing a Barry Manilow Song on a Karoke Machine and sing it in public. You will also be required to re-submit your original order.”

So I find myself, once more, gravitating to the box marked web-browser, credit card shopper, and I reply ….. No … No … No, send me to prison in Texas, make me download something from NASA, change my voter registration to Republican! Anything but this.

Finally got it all straightened out on the third pass.

Man, it is high time we enforce some kind of radical punishment on these mega corporations that put us thru all this insane crap for one simple transaction. Then load us up with junk emails encouraging us to buy even more and endure the same process again, and again. I am sick of them cluttering up my email box with useless information, we need to find a way to do something to the people who insist on business practices such as the above (slightly exaggerated or embellished in order to clarify).

Perhaps refuse to do business with them altogether.  That might work.

Who knows what type of residuals might occur.  Our streets might suddenly be safer, crime would go down, the adults would be in charge again … America could and would, be a much happier place. Just thinking about it makes me want to just sit back and sing a soulful melody …

“Havin’ My Baby, what a lovely way of saying how much ….. She’s having my …..”

DVD’s will be here October 4^th, day before my birthday, and next time, I believe, I am gonna drive over to the store.  I don’t need the aggravation and who knows, the fresh air might do me some good.

000

Parting shot: “Three things happen to you each time you order something online, and the first two are not good at all.”