Sofas and Thingies

It's been a while since last. Sorry about that. I'm sure you've all missed me like a tooth ache. Because I'm so sweet! No that didn't make sense, I know.


Let's get the usual stuff out of the way so we can focus on more important stuff later. My rant about CaveMongo Inc. They've implemented a new business plan. It's called 'Take Peters money and still don't let him ride our vehicles'. It started with a beep too many. When I show my buspass to the thingy on the bus/tram it goes 'beep' and shows a friendly green light. A couple of weeks ago the thingy instead it went 'beepbeep' accompanied with an angry red light instead. I didn't think anything of it and figured that it just hadn't scanned my pass properly. (because that's the most common cause for getting ze old 'double-beep-red-light'). As time progressed I started noticing a trend. Every time I showed my pass I got the red light. After a day and a half I actually bothered to read the display:


'Expired'.


'AHA!' You all think, 'this will be a story about that fat retard not renewing his buspass in time.'


But no. I actually have my buspass on auto-renew, connected to my credit card. So I logged into my online-bank to check if any payments have failed. To my utter astonishment it had not. I'm as surprised as you dear reader, all signs point to the unlikely theory that CaveMongo Inc had fucked up. Me being a strong admirer of the worlds first private detective and his axiom 'When you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth' so I called customer service. The girl who answered had a friendly voice and asked me a lot of questions just like customer support usually do.


'Hi, my buspass isn't working, when I show it to the thingy on the bus it says 'expired'.


'Have you logged onto our webpage and checked the status of your card there?'


'Yes, it says expired'


'What's your card number?'


'123456789' (no not really)


'Ah yes I see here that your last renewal was in december. So everything is in order, you just haven't paid us. The auto-renewal must have failed somehow, sorry about that. I'll set up a new one'


'Hold it hold it hold it! We are going to hold it here. Here is where we will be holding. Holding is what we are going to do and 'it' is going to be what we are holding. You've taken money from my account on Jan 4th.'


'Uhhmm, well... I see'


'Yes'


'But then the renewal should be on its way, you just need to show your buspass to a reader and everything will be fixed, nothing to worry about.' (apparently 'reader' is the technical term for 'thingy'. I will continue to use the term 'thingy' not to confuse the blue and yellow gizmos with you guys. Now I have a mental image of people reading my blog while attached to the fixtures of a public transport vehicle)


'Do you remember the beginning of this conversation when I said that it said 'expired' when I showed my buspass to the thingy? One could say that it actually was one of the motivational forces for me to actually enter this conversation with you.'


'Yes... I'll have to transfer you to the economy department to see what went wrong, but they've already went home for the day. They'll be back on monday. What was that sound?'


'Nothing, just me carving a chunk of flesh from my thigh, have a nice weekend!'


'I've written down everything about your case here so you don't have to answer any questions.'


Come monday, I had a long electronical conversation with another customer support-person (not the economy department as promised), having to explain pretty much everything above again. Two days pass and nothing happens, not a word about anything. On wednesday evening I write an addendum to the conversation I've been having with 'other customer-support person':


'I realise that it's not very fun or motivational to listen to peoples complaints all day so I'll remain civilised. In exchange, can you please walk over to the economy department and pretend that I just called you and chewed your ass off'


After an hour a reply came back:


'We will be sending you a replacement card'


See? It pays off to be nice.


I've also bought a new sofa! It's very comfy, and large. I'd found a nice sofa on the internet for just about 1300$ and went to the furniture store to take a look at it in person and, you know, get acquainted with it, perhaps take it out to dinner and a movie if we hit it off. These kind of relationships you don't just rush into. After a couple of minutes we were interrupted by a sales-girl. She asked me if I had found something I liked and I asked her if this sofa was available in any other colours. A little away from the sofa of course not to hurt the sofas feelings. She had some samples for me to look at and I picked a colour I liked. We went downstairs to her desk and she started doing the paperwork and calculations then turned to me with a friendly smile.


'There, then it'll be 2500$'


I squinted my eyes suspiciously. 'Did you by chance perhaps sell used cars before you landed this job? Or maybe suspicious underwear subscriptions over the phone'


She then explained to me that the colour that I had found on the internet was on sale and it normally costed 2000$ and that the fabric I chose was a more expensive one.


'Oh ok. Well 2500$ is a bit steep for me. I'll get back to you.'


She gave me her phone number if I had a change of heart, but looked very disappointed. I got back home and pondered, gave the walls a good look. Picturing the sofa with the original colours, trying to make a mental image of what it would all look like together and decided that it probably would look pretty well together. The next day I went back and told the girl


'Yup the guy you never thought you'd see again is back.'


I've never seen anyone _that_ happy to see me. I suppose she really needed the sale or something. Or she thought I was handsome. Toss-up in my mind.


(here there would be a picture of the sofa if blogger hadn't gone all sofa-nazi on me and refused to upload it)


Pro tip of the day:
If you're sitting on a bus and have decided to shave your beard because it's starting to look 'above average sleazy' and is pondering what to say to the cute cashier at the store where you're buying your razor-blades to charm her and have finally settled on 'I've gotta get rid of this whole taliban-thing I've got going'. Then it's extremely crucial to make sure that you're just thinking it inside your head and not just blurting it out for everyone else on the bus to hear.


P.S. Today the thingy 'double-beeped' again stating 'Balance too low' as a reason. 'I don't need to have a balance! I've paid to ride for free the entire month!'. I swear I'm considering getting a car again, happily paying gas, insurance and taxes just to spite the motherfuckers. Fuck you, environment! If these retards are your ambassadors you should be shopping for new ones. I hear George W Bush is looking for a new job.