Aug 15, 2010

Aiden had a birthday this week.  It turns out that he is seven.

We had a family party today, Mom, Dad, sister, cousin, aunts, uncles, and four grandparents.  It was a lot of fun.

 One of my grandchildren once famously complained, "He sarcazed me."  Scarcazed being the verb form of scarcasm.

During my short-lived school teaching career, I learned that it is unwise to sarcaze young children because they don't get it and they can easily misunderstand the intention.

"Gee Johnny, how long is the Stupid Convention in town?"

"There's a Stupid Convention?"

See, they're hopeless.

Anyway, I was watching television and I noticed a commercial for "Heavy Duty" internet service from our local telephone, I mean, local high-speed internet company.  Heavy Duty, you can't turn that down. 

How many times have you been surfing the web so hard that it broke on you? More than once I'm guessing, so the heavy duty is what you want, no what you need, in your internet service.

Unfortunately for the Sneeds, despite the fact that we live in the dead center of a metro area of a million folks, we cannot get anything faster than dial-up from this telephone, I mean high-speed internet company.

We have to use the local cable company for our internet service and this has worked well for us.

The commercial kind of got under my skin and I fired off an email to the CEO of this telephone, I mean high-speed internet company, pointing out the irony of advertising Heavy Duty internet service, when I can't even get 'barely duty" service smack dab in the middle of town.

This is not unlike Ford advertising that their latest model gets 40 miles per gallon unless you live in Ohio, Nebraska, Alaska or New Hampshire, in which case it gets six.

Evidently, CEOs are like six-year-olds with respect in their ability to appreciate the fine art of sarcazing.

Within a day of sending my email, I got a call from one of the CEOs "problem resolution" specialists, letting me know that she was on the problem and that I could expect an answer real soon.

I already knew the answer. Dial-up, at least from them.

The problem resolution person handed off my problem to another guy, who left me a message letting me know that he was on the job and would have an answer real soon.

A few days later I got another call from the second guy.  He was sorry to have to tell me that my address is not eligible for their high-speed internet, heavy duty or otherwise.  Duh. 

Geez, I felt bad that the last guy.  He had to make a bunch of calls and bother a bunch of people to find out what my original email could have told him, if only his fearless leader understood scarcazing.










Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

9 comments:

Bella Rum said...

Did this actually happen, Merle, or are you just sarcazing us.

Happy birthday, Aiden!

My goal today: Use sarcazed in a sentence.

Carolina Linthead said...

I second Bella Rum's goal! This is quite a fun post, fairly dripping with your trademark sarcasm, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Happy birthday to Aiden! That's a lovely cake. Been there, done that with the phone, I mean high-speed internet company.

Steve Reed said...

It's not surprising to me that 7-year-olds and CEOs have so much in common!

Maybe your call at least made them more aware that your part of town lacks service?

Kurt said...

At least you got an answer. Half the time companies don't even respond.

The Bug said...

We gave up & just bowed down to the cable gods - at least that way we have service. AND the benefit of being able to complain about the cable company (which actually hasn't given us too much to complain about - I feel sort of let down).

Love the word sarcaze - I will try to use it in conversation today. I work with some not bright folks who will figure it's just one of my fifty cent words they don't need to know. Irony!

Perpetual Chocoholic said...

That's a great expression on his face!

These people (CEO's and politicians) live in a whole different brain space than regular folk. I had to laugh when watching the American news, they said that though foreign tourism was down along the gulf coast beaches that locals were vacationing at home in order to help the economy. D'uh! Maybe it's because a whack of them lost their jobs when the oil spill destroyed their livelyhood idiots!

Megan said...

Seven, huh? That's getting up there. I hope all the Sneeds and their adherents enjoyed the party. What did he get for loot?

Sarcazed is a great word. I'm using it too.

Reya Mellicker said...

Yes, sarcasm is wasted on the young and earnest. Wasted, mostly, on me, too.

I switched the cable when I moved into the chateau. It is so much faster than DSL. It was a good move.

A Concerned Citizen said...

"How many times have you been surfing the web so hard that it broke on you?"

No matter how long I take in between blogging stints, I can always count on you to crack me up when I come back.

I can also always count on the Sneedlets remaining absolutely adorable. Happy birthday, Aiden.