| Subject: The Marlen Chronicles: How to get cable outside the U.S. |
Author:
Marlen
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Date Posted: 07/27/02 10:08am
Another true story from your Resident Cuban.
I have never had cable. I don’t have time to watch Oprah, let alone 3000 channels. But my husband Karl insisted. Says everyone at work talks about educational shows they’ve seen and he feels left out. Why he can’t just come out and tell me he wants to watch Sex and the City is beyond me! So okay, I’ll be a Couch Potato instead of Karl’s Tomato.
I called AT&T and became a Platinum Customer. I arranged for installation. Knowing Karl would have a million questions, and being an experienced South Floridian, I told them they needed to provide an English speaking installer or forget it. Those of you in the USA don’t have to make such threats, but I live in Miami. No problem I was told. Installation would take place Monday between 2 and 5 pm. In English.
I woke up Monday with an upset stomach and losing my stomach contents. Great! Maybe I could watch the Medicine Channel for tips.
So as I hang my head over the toilet while Karl holds my forehead, the dogs start barking like we are being murdered in our beds and there is pounding at the door at 11:45 a.m. Karl leaves me to die alone and goes to answer the door. He comes back saying "It’s the cable people and they don’t speak English!" Being concerned only in trying to keep from expelling my stomach lining through my throat, I told him to tell them to go away and come back between 2 and 5 pm. "I can’t! They don’t speak English!" he says.
So I told him he could either: a) tell them to learn English and come back between 2 and 5 pm, or b) bring them into the bathroom so I could projectile vomit on them to show our displeasure at their lack of language skills. Somehow they left.
I recovered enough to call and scream at AT&T that their installers were unilingual and couldn’t tell time. A nice Service Rep assured me an English speaking installer would be at my home between 2 and 5 pm. I also managed to demand and get a month’s free service for my trouble. My stomach was not working but my brain and tongue were just fine.
So 2 pm arrives. And 3 pm. And 4 pm. And 5 pm. No installer. At 6 pm I called AT&T.
Everyone sit down for this one and grab a cup of tea.
I was told by AT&T nobody had showed up because they subcontract the installation work and somehow, they do not have English-speaking installers in the Miami area.
I cannot tell you verbatim what I said because this is a respectable forum, so let me paraphrase. I told them they could fly in installers from Wapakoneta, Ohio for all I cared. The assistant head of customer service apologized profusely, assured me an English speaking installer would be at my home the next day between 8 and 11 am. And, oh yeah, I got another month’s free service.
At 8:45 am, the door bell rings. Karl opens the front door and a bald headed guy in an AT&T T-shirt smiles and says, "Me Engleech no good." He was followed by the couple who clean for me. I forgot it was their day! Since none of them spoke English I introduced them to each other and left them to discuss the liberation of Cuba while I pulled Karl aside. I told him he had to play charades with the installer while I took care of the cleaning people, and I would arrange to own AT&T later.
To make a long story short, I got a lot of months of free service, including the premium channels, and have called Customer Service 11 times in one day, and that was just to figure out how to operate the remote.
I am so glad I got cable now. I have emailed the O’Reilly Factor re: the need to annex Miami to the United States so we can get cable installation in English. I saw a woman prepare a 30 minute meal but it included a black salad and it would take me a year to muster the courage to eat it. The same woman goes from town to town proving she can eat on $40 a day. She can do it on $20 here in Miami, but she has to pay $2000 for the Berlitz course to learn Spanish. A guy named Tony goes from place to place looking for the ultimate culinary experience and I saw him eat the palpitating raw heart of a snake which was just slaughtered in some foreign country to which we probably send foreign aid so they can breed snakes.
I saw an interior designer named Christopher Lowell dressed in drag. So far his designs would be considered cruel and unusual punishment in our federal prisons if we decorated them that way. Last night, I saw The Iron Chef and I got many useful recipes using sea urchin roe, apparently called "uni."
As Molto Mario would say, "Ciao." I must run now to make plans for dinner. I got my diving suit ready and will be hunting for sea urchins with my scuba gear so I can murder them and steal their uni.
Black beans and uni, anybody?
Hopefully, during dinner I can tune in to learn how to pickle parrot’s testicles for tomorrow’s breakfast. And I hope I don’t miss the upcoming show where I can learn to make giraffe’s neck bones mousse for my next party.
I am going to make Karl wish he could actually eat the cable!
Hugs,
Marlen
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