I know you think I complain a lot.  Maybe you’re right.  But this time I know I have a legitimate gripe, and I’ve just about had it.  I had to deal with another speed-talker during a phone conversation and It was all I could do to keep from throwing my phone against the wall.  And then stomping the shit out of it.  And flushing it down the toilet.  I know you’ve had an encounter with one of these people too.  They talk so fast you can’t understand but every fourth word.  It’s not like talking to one of those guys you’re stuck with because your phone call somehow got sidetracked to India.  If you’re talking to an East Indian, you can’t ask to speak to someone who speaks English.  Your call got sent all the way to India, and so the next person and the next person after that, will be no kind of an improvement for you.  They’re all Indian.  You just have to make the best of it.  I’ve seen a lot in my day, but I am still baffled by the complexity, yet paradoxical simplicity, of telephone technology.  I remember when I was little, a long distance call was something my parents had to budget for.  A phone call from where I lived in Wyoming to my grandparents in Iowa was so pricey it was done only on special occasions, like Christmas and Easter.  I know my 96 year old mother realizes phone technology now is light years ahead of what was available 50 years ago, but I think she still reflexively hangs up immediately if there is the slightest indication her call travelled all the way to India.

To get around exorbitant phone bills, one slick trick parents in the 50’s and’ 60’s taught all their kids was the old bogus collect phone call on Ma Bell.  You know it, if you’re still alive.  The phone you used looked like this:

Or this

You drove a few hundred miles to college and your parents wanted to make sure you arrived safely so they insisted you call them collect when you got to school and of course they would not accept the charges when you made that phone call but the whole thing worked as planned because that way the call was free and resulted in the cleverly intended signal that you were safely at school although you were probably really at a bar with the gang and the real test of whether you would make it to school safely or not was going to occur about 2 hours later when you got behind the steering wheel and drove the final 12 blocks to school.

But I’m talking about speed-talkers.  I had to call my cable company the other day, and that’s how I ran into my speed-talking woman.  And this is not a gender specific phenomena.  It can just as likely happen with a guy.  I want to be absolutely clear about that because I have a couple of  overly sensitive women in my family that get nose-bleeds every time they feel I am somehow denigrating their sex.   I had to make my cable company phone call because of a glitch during one of their supposedly “simple” set up procedures for my new cable boxes.  Yes, that’s right.  Plural.  My cable company is going straight digital, so recently they informed me I will very shortly need a cable box for any television set I intend on using if I currently use their service.  Believe me I have started to seriously contemplate those last 3 words.  The thought of installing a dish is suddenly becoming a more appealing one.  Frankly I’m fed up with my cable company’s attitude, which basically is I should  be perfectly  happy bending over and taking whatever new charge they come up with up my ass.  My TV reception isn’t that great anyway.  I am constantly seeing pixillated video on the two channels I absolutely deem to be a total necessity- ESPN and ESPN2.  All my other channels are great.  Those cable jokers are mind-dicking me, I know it and I am getting sick of it.  During my  HD upgrade I got some nice movie channels, but I hardly watch them.  I don’t give a shit about those.  I want a clear, defined picture on my ESPN channels.  And Fox Sports.  And Big 10 Network.  And all my basic network channels if there is any kind of major sporting event going on there.  Except I guess I don’t care so much about soccer.  My cable company can just go ahead and pixilate that.

One of our TV’s is an old 15 inch cathode tube TV.  It works just fine.  It’s not HD but I don’t care.  More specifically, my wife doesn’t seem to care.  That TV is in the den/craft/art/ironing room and she’s the one who mostly watches that TV.  But I still have to have one of those shitty cable mini boxes for it.  Jesus I’m not a total asshole.  I’m not going to deprive my wife of the small comfort of watching that piece of shit TV.  But during the set up process for that TV, I couldn’t quite complete the last step that was required on my computer screen.  My new set up was working as the computer instructions indicated, but the last step of clicking the “submit”  button did nothing.  I really didn’t care at that point.  My TV was working in its new digital format so I was perfectly happy.  But for 5 days afterward I kept getting emails from the cable company douchebags asking me to activate my mini boxes.  All my mini boxes are as active as active can be, but  because I could not complete that final step for whatever reason, I had to make my phone call and clear things up.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t go into this much detail over something so trivial.  But I thought you might want to know about it in case this happens to you.  That’s how I operate.

I called my cable company, and after 15 minutes on hold I explained what happened, making the points in the above paragraph, and told the cable person all I really wanted was to let their company know things were working fine and to please have them discontinue the emails.  That’s when the speed talking began.

ST (speed talker):– Soyouculled  andeverblingwhatwasok?  ME– What?  Sorry I didn’t understand you.  ST- Isbluckok?  Whatyoumeedto completegoringtofliz your computer?  ME– I’m sorry again.  I’m kind of hard of hearing.  Not real bad, but I need you to slow down and enunciate.  ST-  shotthesmorgasboardandflixfirst screen on firthcomputer.  Didyouseezthat?  Me– I hope I’m not interrupting you in mid-sentence, but goddamn it I can hardly understand a word you’re saying.  ST (slightly irritated now)–  Blathtofungomunch on computer.  Justlet menow if snizzelworks aftagrontmibuckle.   ME (really irritated)– Look.  I don’t want to waste your time, and I certainly don’t want to waste mine.  I am really sorry’ but not only can I not understand you, it seems you have shit for brains because you insist on sneezdorkylizingmuchglimppernog.  How does that feel?  ST-  What?   ME– Hopefully now you get my point.  JUST   TELL   YOUR  BOSS   TO   STOP   SENDING   THESE   FUCKING    E-MAILS!     GOODBYE!