ok. i'm a little steamed.

Do you know what gets my gander? Do you know what gets me so fired up that I could blow enough steam out my nostrils to straighten my nose hairs!

I'll tell you: Customer service that is not.

Tonight, our new printer fritzed out and would not recognize the cartridge. Keep in mind that the cartridge and printer have known one another intimately since the day we took them out of the box a few weeks go. All of a sudden, the printer starts playing hard to get and the cartridge is a nobody.

So what do I do? I call customer service. And why do I do this? Because I am insane enough to think they will help me.

After getting disconnected once, I finally get ahold of a real person with an accent so thick that I struggle to understand him. Understand there is not one bit of racism in me, but I am immediately irked when he tells me his name is John. Trust me. Never in the history of mankind has anyone with this accent been named JOHN! I'm sure he is well trained and highly qualified, but his name is not John and I resent being lied to from the get-go.

"John" takes my name, my phone number, my email address, and the model and serial number of the printer. He asks me a few questions and has me shut the machine off and turn it on again. "John" tells me I have a problem with the machine. I am developing a problem with "John". "John" now tells me that I need to speak with technical services, and asks if I would hold. Of course, I have no choice.

Next one the phone is "Sonia", who is no more a "Sonia" than "John" was a "John". Sonia takes my name, my phone number, my email address, and the model and serial number of the printer. I want to ask if she knows "John". She asks me a few questions and has me shut the machine off and turn it on again. "Sonia" tells me I have a problem with the machine.

She eventually decides that she and "John" will send me a new set of cartridges. They should be here in a month. Did I mention I was printing our March newsletter? Maybe I'll send out "Dear John" letters.