Okay, I went to a wedding this weekend and I got a little teary-eyed. There, I said it. I almost cried when I saw my best friend watch his fiancée walk down the aisle at the church.

Don’t worry, I sucked it up and pretended to be a man, but the older I get, the more I find myself touched by events like this.

Saturday was a fun day. The groomsmen consisted of Dave, Matt, Josh, and myself. We have all worked together for about the past three or four years and know most of one another’s dark secrets- like who did what at the strip club, who peed in their suitcase once when they were drunk, and where the hookers are buried. The ceremony itself was about as interesting as a wedding ceremony can be. It was a catholic wedding ceremony and I’m not catholic, so I’m not really qualified to make a call on that. It was a traditional deal with a big pretty church, an interesting priest, and flowers and bows and people crying and stuff. All I know is that I was wearing a tuxedo and I looked frigging great. Don’t believe me? Well check this out (I’m the one on the right. They put me in front because I stand a mere 5’9”)-

How about THAT? Still nothing? Well, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but I guess I have to pull out the big guns.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. All tuxedoed goodness up in there. Ladies, feel free to go flick the bean. I’ll wait.

Of course, the bride and groom looked pretty smokin’ as well. Check this out-

After the ceremony we had a few hours to kill before the reception, so we did what any group of well-dressed folks would do. Started drinking. Soon we were at my pad, all having a good time and looking forward to the party that evening.

And party we did. I even danced. Swear to god. It is undocumented, but as usual someone called an ambulance when they saw me in the midst of what seemed to be an allergic reaction to peanuts. Dancing to me has only one purpose- to make people laugh. Getting to see an ambulance is gravy. I could never dance to be sexy. Partly because I think dancing is inherently dumb, but mostly because I am a non-sexy terrible dancer. I am, however, blessed with the desire to make those around me laugh with no regard for my personal safety or image.

So my friend Cram is dead. Err…I mean married. Usually I would consider this a send-off, but his wife has spent enough time with all of us to know that things aren’t going to change much. Plus, she’ll be begging us to get him out of the house once in a while. The two of them have shown themselves to be strong, honest, and good people over the years I have known them, and for possibly only the second time in my life, I know a couple who is actually better off married than they were single.

Oh, and now my mom can have a picture of me wearing a tuxedo. I know it took a while, but at least I didn’t have to get married for her to get it.

________________________________________________________________________

Comcast sucks- Part one in a forty part exercise in futility.

I am still in the midst of trying to get cable at my new pad. Comcast is a very dedicated company. Dedicated to driving people to the edge of sanity. I tried to sign up via internet first. That went something like this-

Clickity clack clikky.

Click click

Clickitey.

Click

Ka-KLIK

Clickey

Click click

(seven pages and about a half hour later)

click clickety

annnnnd- CLICK, bitches.

Done. That was easy…wha?

“We’re sorry, your address does not exist in our database. Please call a customer service representative between the hours of…” I couldn’t read the rest because my eyeballs had flames shooting out of them and I was transforming into the incredible hulk. Not really an incredible hulk. More of a difficult-to-believe Hulk.

It’s funny to me how my first instinct is always to damage my computer in some way. As if this assembly of silica and wires is somehow to blame for a company’s ineptitude. I think the head shrinkers call it transferral or projection or something. In any case, I found that I could throw a mouse hard enough to penetrate drywall. I also found that patching holes in drywall is almost easy enough to make it worth the cost of a new mouse.

So I decided to call the cable company. I had to be a smartass to keep from verbally abusing whomever answered, but it didn’t help my cause any-

“Comcast, this is Mark, how can I help you?”

“Hi Mark, My name is Dusty. So very nice to speak with you.”

“Thank you sir, you as well. What can I help you with?”

“Well, I am in need of some television other than NASCAR and Slutty the Vampire Slayer, and hoped you could help me out.”

“Sure thing. Which packages are you interested in?”

“I’m not sure. Why don’t you tell me about your package?”

“Huh? Er…Okay, are you interested in any movie channels?”

“Possibly one, like HBO or something. Do they show boobs on HBO?”

“I’m not allowed to say, sir. Do you think you’d be interested in high speed internet access?”

“Interwhat?”

“Internet access. For your computer.”

“What is that?”

“What’s what?”

“Internet. Is it a new computer game, like Atari?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes”

“Okay, I’ll just quote the cable package for now. You can get local channels, starz, the tree channel, the cheese channel, that channel where all they do is fix people’s houses with fabulous curtains and a coat of paint, history, discovery, and the funny channel, with HBO for $73.99.”

“Per year?”

“No sir, per month.”

(Loud scream, followed by catching of breath and clutching of chest)

“Sir?”

“$73.99 a MONTH? Okay, I’ll admit I was kidding about the internet if you’ll admit you were kidding about that price. Good god, I almost pissed in my pants.”

“Well, sir I could offer you the basic loser package for $43.99”

“What does that include?”

“NASCAR and The Buffy Channel”

“Dammit, Mark. Why do you hate me? What did I do to you?”

“Well, sir, those are our prices. I can’t change them.”

“Helluva sales pitch, Marko. I’m going to shop around a bit, but I have your number AND your name, and if you breathe one word of this to ANYONE…”

“sir?”

“Oh, sorry, I got caught up in the moment. Talk to you later.”

“thank you for calling comcas-“

*click*

I did some research and decided that the $43 deal isn’t too horrible, so I got back on the computer and submitted a form stating that I was having trouble with my address not being in their system. Here is what I received the next day-

Thank you for your interest in Comcast’s standard cable service.

At this time we are unable to complete the order you placed on

Comcast.com because the address you entered was not found in our system.

Please verify the accuracy of the information you entered such as

spelling of the street name and/or apartment number. If the information

you originally submitted is not correct, please reply to this e-mail

with the correct information. If all information is correct, please

contact our customer service department at 1-888-COMCAST for further

research. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and we look

forward to serving you in the near future.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any more questions.

Sincerely,

Samuel

Well, no kidding. They surmised from my statement about my address not being in their database that my address was not in their database. How do these spacktards manage to draw breath from day to day?

So I verified it. I looked at the address I had entered, checked it against some mail I had gotten, even went outside to make sure it was written on my mailbox. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had just bought a home that didn’t exist. So I wrote back to them-

My address is 123 Highland Ave., Atlanta, Georgia, 30306. I know this to be true because I live there and I receive mail there. If you want I can point to it on a map or draw a picture of it. Does this mean I am going to have to watch crap TV for even longer now? I called you customer service number, but was disconnected twice while on hold, causing a relapse of my spastic colon. I’ll send you the cleaning bill.

Looking forward to your prompt response,

-=D=-

Two days later, I get this nice note:

Dear Dusty Scott,

Thank you for your interest in Comcast’s Cable.

At this time we are unable to complete the order you placed on

Comcast.com because the address you entered was not found in our system.

Please verify the accuracy of the information you entered such as

spelling of the street name and/or apartment number.

If the information you originally submitted is not correct, please reply

to this e-mail with the correct information.

IF ALL INFORMATION IS CORRECT, PLEASE CONTACT OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE

DEPARTMENT AT 1-888-COMCAST FOR FURTHER RESEARCH.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and we look forward to

serving you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Brandon

Notice it is the same as the first one, with one crucial difference. The part about calling Comcast is in caps. Like a really passive way for them to say “read the damn e-mail, dip shit.” Followed by a very sincere apology from Brandon. Brandon doesn’t know it yet, but he does not look forward to serving me in the near future.

So I called once again. This time I talked to Michelle. Surprisingly, Michelle actually attempted to put my address into “the system”. Not surprisingly, she also told me that it would be four days before it would “really be in the system”, and the process of scheduling a service date could begin at that time. In other words, my attempt to expedite my order had cost me another two weeks at minimum. My best guess is that “the system” consists of developmentally disabled three year olds crawling across their keyboards.

Why am I still pursuing this option for my television service? Because they are the only game in town, and a sick part of me needs to document the depths of customer service hell.

So I called back four days later. Know what? My address still isn’t in the system. By now I was pretty torqued about this. Why am I working so hard to give my money to someone?

“Can I speak to a manager?”

“Well, before I trouble a manager with your case, let’s see if I can hel-“

“Listen. I am extremely frustrated with what I have been through in the past two weeks dealing with your company. I know you don’t know the details, but I’m about to seriously change my tone if you don’t put me on the phone with someone who has their finger on the magic button.”

“Sir…”(said in this infuriating “calm down” voice)

“Oh shit.” (said in this very “don’t take that tone with me, you little turd” voice)

*hold music, followed by a new voice*

“Hi, sir. Sorry for the wait. What can I do for you?”

*tell him complete story*

“Oh, let me check your address…That address is not in the system.”

“hhhhh-hhhh—sssssonnnn offff a bbb-bbb-bbb-bbb mussstt—killll…”

“Sir?”

“Okay. God. Damn. It. To. Hell. I am trying to buy a service from you. I want to buy cable television and all of the wonderful programming it provides. This is my address. Nine other people have put it in the system, and it’s still not there. Might I suggest getting a new system, since the current system sucks so much ass?”

“Well, see we just started a new way of doing things, and once your address is in, we’ll have you up and running in 48 hours.”

“Okay, consider the clock running.”

“Well, we can’t get your address in the system until Monday. Call me personally on Monday and I’ll make sure you have cable by Wednesday.”

He gave me his name, I wrote it down, and I called him today. For two days, I thought Comcast had sort of salvaged their reputation by putting someone on the phone who made a good show of pretending to care.

Guess what? No one knows who he is or what he does. And my address is still not in the system.

Guess what else? I’m going to stop by Home depot tonight and buy a signal splitter and 20 feet of cable. I’m also going to send the cable company $40 a month every month. They can cash the check, throw it away, or pound it up sideways for all I care.

I’m sure this isn’t over yet. I’ll be renting a lot of movies in the near future. Feel free to recommend some.

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