The bog of eternal stench meets the blog of existential despair

8032 / 50000 words. 16% done!

Portrait of the author.

 There must be a universal rule somewhere that states "if you are awoken before nine in the morning by a customer service representative, it probably means your day is not going to go well." Whether there is or not, it certainly applies in my case. On Wednesday morning, I was awoken at the charming (if you're a bird) hour of 8:45, by a Bell Canada salesperson to inform me that my message of "hey, please cancel this order" finally got through to them and they'd cancelled it. I didn't actually drag my carcass out of bed until an hour after that, having already recognized that the day had given up before it even started, but sure enough, it went flying downhill as soon as I got out of bed. It was blisteringly hot (one might point out that it's been blisteringly hot for weeks now, and this is not a sign that the universe is conspiring against me, but I know better) I missed the bus (although "missed" implies a certain amount of complicity on my part, like I was running late and didn't get to the stop on time. What ACTUALLY happened was the bus driver speeding right through the stop, even as I waved to get on, possibly flipping me the bird as he did so) a call from home informed me that my cat had pissed all over my beloved childhood stuffed animals, and last but not least, my computer done broke.

Now my computer is only two months old, so I might be forgiven for assuming that a) this is pretty early for it to go and die on me, and b) that the warranty it's under will cover repairs. So after I did what I always do when the computer breaks and called my mommy ("MOMTHECOMPUTERWONTTURNON! ALLMYWRITINGISONTHERE! IDUNNOWHATTODOOOOOOOOOOOO!") I called up the computer tech people to ask why their fine product appeared to be functioning as well as the toy telephone I had when I was three.

[Half an hour of consultation and several automated sales pitches later]

Me: So what you're saying

Me: is that the computer I paid you five hundred bucks for

Me: the computer I paid you five hundred bucks for last month
Me: has suddenly come down with a case of corrupted hard drive
Me; and now I have to schlep down to Best Buy and pay them a hundred bucks to retrieve my data
Me: the data in danger of being lost because the computer you sold me failed
Me: and I have to pay for this out of pocket
Me: because your warranty doesn't cover it?
Sales Rep: Yes ma'am.
Me: *SILENT FACE OF RAGE AT THE PHONE*

So adios amigos until we meet again! Let it be known that if lightning strikes the Toshiba headquarters in the meantime, they totally deserved it.

AVENGE MY FOUL AND MOST UNNATURAL MURDER