And now to suit our, Great Computer...

You're magnetic ink...

Last, Tuesday, my phone went dead. Daunted not at all, I made my way to the nearest, Cricket, phone dealer and purchased phone service through September of this year. I next managed to figure out the majority of the new phone features, sans manual, which has still, not as yet, been provided to me as promised at the time of original purchase.

Things seemed to be going well for a couple days until I discovered, through friends who quickly joked about the name my phone was coming up as on their caller I.D. boxes, that my phone was identifying me as someone else. A woman named, Norma. (The last name escapes me at the moment.)

I promptly called my local service provider and asked that this error be changed, as quickly as humanly possible, to correctly identify me as me to those I call upon a regular basis. I was just as promptly informed that it would be impossible to facilitate such a, particularly-complicated piece of technological-magicking, any earlier than the eighteenth of next month. (May, 2011)

Kinda bummed me out...

At eleven-o-clock in the evening, four days after purchasing my, Cricket Phone Service, I received an urgent text message on my new cell-phone informing me that my account was at risk. I immediately logged on to the indicated website and then, wasting no time whatsoever, promptly created the mandatory name and password combination necessary for checking the status of my brand new online, Cricket, account. Whee!

The bill for seventy-four dollars and eight cents waiting for me in my newly created in-box kinda caught me off guard. When I opened the the link promising itemized explanations for the bill I received an error message saying, "We are experiencing difficulties in accessing your account, please call our twenty-four hour a day support line."

I did so. Some guy named, Haji-god-damn-a-lam, (Again, the last name escapes me.) asked me a million questions about me to guarantee that I was indeed me and then he opened my account.

"Are you aware, sir, that the name you have chosen for your caller I.D. is, Norma? I believe that is to be being a woman's name. Is it not, Sir?"

"Are you aware, Haji, that the country in which I live possesses the most advanced military cruise missiles in the entire world and I can see the building you're sitting in right now? Did you know that, Haji?"

"Are you to be threatening me, Norma? Please allow me to gather my Pakistani posse around the monitor so we may all be laughing at your expense, Sir."

They were still laughing so hard when I hung up the phone on them that I still don't know what the charges are for...

Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, online where no one knows me as, Norma, that crazy American guy.

Happy Easter all you bunnies out there...