Seriously Painful Movement, Part I

For the third time in as many months, I apologize for the lack of updates. What was meant to be the Simplest Move In My History has turned into the Baatan Death March. So even though technically, The American Jerk has a new home office, that office is, in fact, only a technicality.

Three and a half weeks ago, the movers arrived on time and deposited all my shit in the new place with a smile, a wink, and a wretched and toxic hydraulic leak from the truck that, to this day, stains the parking lot of my new abode with poison scum. Hopefully it will eventually kill the children living in my building before I can convince someone to sell me a lethal device to do it that can’t be traced back to me (And sadly, the Mexican switchblade I bought while shitfaced in a Cancun tourist trap doesn’t count. Turns out that fucker won’t kill hot butter, let alone a punk five-year-old shrieking, “Los Estados Unidos aspiran en el fútbol!”).

However, on the plus side, the following day, the cable guy arrived as scheduled and installed my first-time-ever rig with more than forty-five channnels. Plus, the phone dude showed up on-time to install the phone jack I needed to get my DSL working. That was on June 7th.

That was the LAST thing that has gone right.

Before the move, flush with cash and eager to take advantage of an apartment building that, being identical to my girl’s, seemed immune to transmitting surround sound through walls, I ordered two new stereo speakers and a subwoofer for my reasonably bitchin’ DTS system. I was not worried about neighbor complaints, because they have the kids, and I’m a firm believer in the axiom that “Children should be seen and not heard complaining that the gringo next door is telling them that their future involves the cooking of Egg McMuffins, or the tossing of salads without utensils in the prison shower.”

When I placed the order for these reasonably expensive speakers in the final days of May, I told the sales rep at a company that, for the sake of argument we’ll call “Cambridge Soundworks“, that my purchase was based on the understanding that the shipment had to be made on June 5th, so I could take delivery on June 7th. The fine sales rep told me that that was “no problem whatsoever,” just before apparently hanging up and ordering that the speakers be delivered IMMEDIATELY. Which is the commerce equivilent of a girl saying “Don’t come in me!” just after giving her your real name, home address, and Social Security Number and wiping your dick on her knee.

Therefore, by the time I was actually in the place, a douchebag company that I will refer to as “UPS” had tried to deliver the speakers three times, and were preparing to deliver them back to the purely fictional cocksucking company I will continue to call “Cambridge Soundworks”. However, since I called “Cambridge Soundworks” and had gotten a “UPS” tracking number, I was able to call those douchebags at “UPS” and arrange an alternate delivery the next afternoon.

Or so they said.

So I took a half-day from my day gig to take delivery, and waited… and waited… and waited… until I got bored and hung up from phone sex to call the “UPS” automated delivery line, to be told that delivery had been attempted that day… during the time I had been there, attentive to the front door buzzer. I wasn’t even distracted by Internet Animal Pornography, because to this day, I don’t have Internet access. But that is another tale, for another company I would like to savage, which starts with a “V”, ends with an “n”, and is filled “Erizo” goodness.

I called this purely theoretical “UPS” company, to be told that if I would be kind enough to give them an alternate delivery address, they would deliver it the following day. So I gave them the address, and they gave me a local phone number to call in the morning to confirm the new delivery option. They told me this in what I presumed to be English, but clearly I was mistaken, since what it meant was, “I am going to say things that you like to hear. And I am going to give you the number to a person who isn’t me, and doesn’t know what I said to you, and can’t figure out how to get in touch with me, so I can go home and watch American Idol and complain that my phone call vote for Kimberley wasn’t counted without a trace of irony.”

(To be continued later, since I am writing from my girl’s computer, and she wants to peruse Food Network message board posts. I would post from my home, but I have no Internet access, because a purely theoretical company called Verizon blows goats. More later this week)

[tags]moving, Cambridge Soundworks, UPS, Verizon, DSL, dark humor[/tags]