Those Kind Internet Strangers

Hi Friends! Let me just start out on a merry-merry holiday note and say that I finally figured out the sewing tutorial that was confusing me. Turns out, the lady just didn't put some of the directions in, so you kind of had to figure it out yourself. Then, in some places, she put directions that you didn't even need to do / were counterproductive in doing. But I got it thanks to some lovely internet strangers on message boards, and that project is now done! One more Christmas present down, 5.9 million more to handcraft. Like I said before, I'll be ready for Christmas by April.

Since you all know things in my life that should otherwise be easy often turn into ridiculous sagas, I would like to add to that trend by telling you about the very non Christmas doings of Sprint and my cell phone. I could make a book by now.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was to get my phone today and was actually getting exciting about said phone. I was warming up to it and the features I was told it had, and all the shiny prettiness that was it. As is my life, I know what you're all thinking happened. You're thinking I didn't get it, or I did get it and it was broken. Maybe you're even thinking that the mail lost it and Sprint won't reimburse the money I shelled out for it. Although that would be normal, that was just too easy to satisfy my crazy life.

I got the phone just fine. It was in great shape, nothing broken, on time, and, in fact, I even received it in a few days, so I was more than satisfied with the service. However, when I opened it up and turned it on, I realized it was nothing like the lady told me it would be. In fact, I even called Sprint purposely to go over what features it had and didn't have before I ordered, but it was a lie. I wish I would have gone to the store and swapped it out, but quite frankly I've had enough of stores this season, and my phone isn't going to make it past Christmas because the tracking ball is failing fast, and without it I can do nothing on my phone. Still, I made the wrong decision and now I still have to go to the store, but more about that later.

I will be totally honest, I am not a fan of touchscreen phones. I don't know if it's that they're too fancy for this small town girl, or I'm just sure that I'll break one in a nanosecond, but I really didn't want one. I did get one, but the only way I would get a touchscreen was if it also had a track pad. That way, I didn't actually have to use said touchscreen, which I realize is normally counterproductive and defeats the purpose of it otherwise, but I liked the phone, or at least what I was told about it that mostly wasn't true. I even did research, but it was the little things I asked about that aren't online, the specifics, that were wrong.

Anywho, I asked if it had a track pad. The lady said yes. It didn't. I thought maybe I would be okay with that, but when I opened the phone and turned it on to see if I liked it before activating it, the touchscreen was very strange. I would touch something, move my finger over it, etc, and it took me practically shoving my finger up in that phone's grill to get it to work. You can probably change how you touch a phone (that sounded delightfully dirty), but considering the phone wasn't what I wanted in the first place, I decided to forgo the phone.

Then I started finding other issues. I asked the woman if my current memory card would fit in my phone so that I didn't lose any of my information or re-enter anything into it. She assured me that the Blackberry and Transform had the same size memory card. Nope, not even close. There were a few other things that I was told would be included with the phone, or things I was told the phone would do that it obviously didn't, and I was disappointed. Had I known these few things, I would have never gotten the phone and just picked another one. I felt lied to about it.

I called Sprint up to discuss swapping it out for another one. They kept asking me if I had the phone activated yet, and I assured them I hadn't, because I had been told if I activated it that I would be charged a $35 fee if I didn't like it and wanted to return it. Otherwise, I could return it for free for thirty days if I wasn't pleased. That's why I was careful to play with it before activating it. I didn't want to be stuck with the fee.

This flew past the first guy just fine, then he transferred me. I had to tell the second guy the same thing, and that guy told me I'd still have to pay a $35 fee. I told him that was bull because I made sure to know the policy, and it is nowhere in my upgrade contract that I have to pay a fee for sending a phone back. It simply says that I have thirty days to return it if I don't like it and will only pay a fee if I activated it. He told me there was a restocking fee. I cited again the contract I received and agreed to online that said otherwise. He transferred me.

Let's pretend we're on hold and I'll tell you about how this isn't the first time I've gotten different stories from that company. It's like the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. When I had taken my tracking ball to the store, I was told that I could no longer get it changed out for free because of a policy change that I was not alerted of. I wouldn't have even been bent about it if I was alerted. When I called Sprint, they told me the warranty had worn out on my phone and that was why I would now be charged. When I talked to someone else upon being transferred, I was told a whole different story, so really I just feel like they were trying to extort money out of me. Maybe they weren't, but it couldn't hurt to have employees who get their stories straight.

This is the part where I was taken off hold. I was then alerted that the only way they would waive the fee is if I took my phone into a store and changed it out. Cool. I can do that. I know what phone I am going to get and I know I'll like it. It's simply an updated version of my Blackberry, without the tracking ball. I was trying to get something new since I don't love the keypad on the Blackberry, but I know I can't go wrong with it. And it was the same price. I should have not tried something new and just went with it in the first place. This is how I'm going to become an uptight butt wad who buys a cane to shake at kids on my lawn at the ripe old age of 26,

Anyway, not the point. Does anyone notice I rant a lot? Because I feel like I rant a lot. One second I'm hanging onto the subject ever so gracefully and then BAM! I'm off on something else, ranting away, sometimes even about ranting.

This lady told me I could take the phone to our local store and exchange it out. Thankfully, I called the store first. I could not. I have to take it to a store forty five minutes away to a seriously crowded mall near the city. I am a little irked by this, but I'm going that way for a doctors appointment Tuesday, so I'll stop in then. Here's hoping they have the phone in stock that I want, since it's so close to the holidays, and that my phone holds out that long. I'm thinking the former and the latter are going to be huge issues.

But I'm done complaining about that. It's a lesson learned. In all fairness, I've never had one issue with my service, and tech support has been awesome. There was that one time I got the American guy and he was a clueless tech who kept typing my name and birth date wrong, but if I get foreign people, they're always helpful. I'm going to try to just ignore this incident and know next time to just get a phone straight from the store and go with a Blackberry. No trying anything new for me.

Last but not least, I highly suggest in the spirit of the season that everyone go and watch Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh. It's one of those movies that is just so completely out there hysterical that you don't even realize the whole thing was improbable and a little dumb until it's done, but somehow you loved it so much that you'll just keep watching it when you see it on. If it doesn't put you in a happy holiday mood, I don't know what will. It can even cure my Sprint Grinchiness. Or would that be Grinchosity?