The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Monday, September 17, 2001

Holding

I received a notice in snail mail today that my second mortgage payment didn't arrive. This is getting annoying. So I called up the friendly 1-800 number they provided.

“Please press one … ” the oh so chipper recording said. “Please press two to …. Please press three for …. Please press four to talk to a represenative.”

Beep.

“Please press one to talk to a represenative.” Pause. Wait a second, didn't I just select this option?

Beep. “Please stay on the line. A represenative will be with you shortly.” Light heavy metal started playing. Waiting. Waiting. I get a beep, notifying that I have a another call coming in. Nice! I thought. The second I click over, the friendly represenative will be available, find me not on the line, and I'll have to do this all over again! I click over.

“Hello?” I said.

“Oh, sorry, wrong number!” The person hung up.

Oh, that was short, I thought. I clicked back over. Industrial Barbara Streisand was now playing. I thought the lacked conviction for her cover of “Closer” myself. But her cover of Napalm Death's “Conservative SXXthead” was spot on. Another click. Oh no, not another call!

“Hello?”

“Hello?!”

“Hello, yes. I'm calling to offer you a Dillards credit card and—”

“I'm not interested!” Time was running out. Any second now a represenative could hop on the line and I'd be screwed.

“But sir, the rates on this card are very low and—”

“I'm sorry,” I said, the anxiety rising in my voice. “But I'm not interested!”

“Okay, thank you. If you have any questions or … ” Yada yada yada. Once she finished rattling off the ending pitch, I switched back over. Luckily, they had now moved on to Trent Reznor covering “Memories” from Cats so I still hadn't missed the represenative.

Finally, just as I was giving up all hope of a represenative ever taking my call, one got on the line. I was able to check that indeed, they had actually received my last check and to ignore the notice.

I'm glad that was cleared up.

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[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

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You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

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