Obviously no sane or rational humanoid would do such a thing (twice) for no reason, & even if we don't qualify as "sane," we are rational to the point of pessimism. When the expedition to the wasteland beyond the hills started, we were fully expecting to pick up (& stuff into the back of a long-time friend & associate's real VW bug) one of those 40" diagonal, high-definition, digital telebision sets, pre-ordered on-line. (Yes, you can put a 50x39x8 box in a 40-yr. old bug, but the rear seat & front passenger seat have to go, & the box is literally jammed against the door. Subtext: Your reporter was in the front passenger space & on the floorboards from hell & back, unable to see anything [seriously cuts into passenger side imaginary brake application] w/ 50 lbs. of tee vee pushing us toward the glove box.)
Traffic fine, we arrive at Fry's Electronics, park, and are, amazingly in front of a register immediately. Those fortunate enough never to have set foot in one of these temples of commodity fetishism will not know that the sheep, holding their assembled-by-the-slave-laborers-of-the-Greater-East-Asia-Co-Prosperity Sphere gadgets, are herded to a final gauntlet of consumption, an eighty-ft. long, single-file line, where they are surrounded on both sides not by the whirling blades of the abattoir, but a collection of cheesy, loud & brightly colored gimcracks & gewgaws ("Double Disco Balls") as well as gums & candies so the whiny brats of Consumer Nation can annoy their P. U.s until they add to the Fry's profit margin. Fortunately, our fellow 55-yr. old brat was as amazed as we were by the lack of a line, & neither of us had time to whine about anything.
An easy cruise back to civilization (You're know you're in trouble when your idea of civilization is the downtown L. A. skyline seen from the Hollywood Freeway, but that's another story.) another violation of the laws of probability in finding a parking space almost in front of the editorial offices (A space in the same blk. was the miracle. The fact it was three doors from the gate, on the same side of the street is, in this ZIP Code, mere gravy.) & we are inside our tenement w/ the boob tube. (Is "boob tube" about to go the way of "dialing" a 'phone?)
There we are, about to link to the new high-tech digital world, blah, blah. The day's events having gone so well, friend & associate Mikalino is wondering what's going to go wrong. We found out soon enough, opening the box to discover a telebision set, but w/o power cord, remote control, operating manual, or warranty card, and (insult to injury) only two of the four screws needed to attach the pedestal to the set. Two 'phone calls, & the only recourse is a return to hell.
Another twenty-minute ride back to the store (not actually uncomfortable, despite our "subtext" above) where we are informed that we had received the last one they had in stock. That is, we got the one that had been opened & stripped of everything, which they decided not to unload on anyone until all the others were gone. Nice, huh? Probably a floor model that had been running continually for a yr. or so. No other explanation. They were looking to rook us w/ a used set, but weren't even competent enough to put the accessories back in the box. Why the economy sucks: You are a species of cretinous pigs who can't even do a con job right.
We remind all that these horrors occurred at Fry's Electronics. Don't waste your precious time & money patronizing these unspeakable pirates. You've been amply warned.
As a patriotic citizen, we were only trying our best to get the economy moving, both by consuming & by slipping our under-employed friend & associate gas & time money for the whole pointless event from our fabulous gov't. grant that President Obama personally wires into the Just Another Blog™ acc't. each mo. Alas, we were unable to show this "teabagging" illiterate & his ilk what for.
No honking, but we did get off a diatribe to the other suckers in the customer service zone suggesting that the assholes of Fry's Electronics were wasting their fucking time & were only looking to rip them off. This was delivered on the way out the door, & we were amused to note that the five or six ass wipes in their white shirts & black ties ("Management," not Mormon missionaries, or are they? Who owns Fry's, anyway? Why do they make their employees dress like that?) who'd been standing around doing nothing as the line of people waiting to return crap lengthened, take note of our righteous anger & begin to head toward us. Too fast for you, corporate scum!!
No honking, but we did get off a diatribe to the other suckers in the customer service zone suggesting that the assholes of Fry's Electronics were wasting their fucking time & were only looking to rip them off. This was delivered on the way out the door, & we were amused to note that the five or six ass wipes in their white shirts & black ties ("Management," not Mormon missionaries, or are they? Who owns Fry's, anyway? Why do they make their employees dress like that?) who'd been standing around doing nothing as the line of people waiting to return crap lengthened, take note of our righteous anger & begin to head toward us. Too fast for you, corporate scum!!(We were going to make arson threats — we're too cheap, lazy & ignorant for bomb-building — but as our recent encounters w/ probability have indicated, the place would probably burn down as soon as we published our impotent threats, whether from Fry's' incompetence or because another indignant customer has taken justice into his or her hands, & we'd get spotted on the web as suspect numero uno. So please do not take this as even the slightest suggestion that we would dump can after can of gas or another flammable all around the perimeter of Fry's Electronics, casually flick the lit butt of one of our Camel straights into the liquid pooled around the building & run like hell, pausing only to enjoy our handiwork adding light to the already hellish skies of Burbank. Don't even imagine that for one minute, Burbank Arson Squad.)
On top of all this agony, we needed a set to be in place in the editorial offices tomorrow, as the cable co. contractor was due, to install the cable & broadband. It'll be Friday now before we are fully connected to the pseudo-world, & that's assuming nothing else goes wrong, & we can get hold of a telebision by then. And at this stage, we're sitting here w/ fingers crossed & worry beads rattling.
Ah well, back to the world of on-line telebision shopping. Via dial-up. Shoot us now. Quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment