March 27, 2013
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Ping Pang Pung
Last year we fired our Internet service, which was also our cell phone service. I was mad because the salesman who sold me the service was fairly universally hated by the people who worked for him because he was more into hustling than he was providing service. He would sell anything to anyone, whether or not he had any expectation that it would worked, and then duck into the back room when an unsatisfied customer showed up. (I learned all of this after I fired the service and dropped by the office a few months later to find a.) he was gone, b.) previously ‘gone’ employees were back, and c.) they really, really disliked him and took great pleasure in telling me what a jerk he was.)
In the end, we went back to a service I had previously fired. The Internet service is fantastic. The basic cable is very reliable. The premium channels, for while we pay extra, still pixelate at dramatic moments, but who gets everything they want in life? Thrown in the ‘bundle’ with the above services was a free phone. We took it because…it was free.
Previously the phone number belonged to someone named ‘Ping’. Not all of Ping’s friends speak English. Not all of his creditors are pleased with him. Ping may be a she. For a year now I have been answering Ping’s phone and assuring those who have called me that I am not Ping, I don’t know Ping, I don’t know Ping’s new number, but this number is mine and I am not Ping.
It would appear that I lack credibility.
Today the phone rang and when I answered the caller seemed confused. Her caller ID told her my name was Ping. I explained I am not Ping, I don’t know Ping, I don’t know Ping’s new number and I have no interest in paying Ping’s past debts, having quite enough of my own current ones, and it turned out this person is a friend of Ilah’s and she really should have the number on her phone, just not in Ping’s name.
So I called Comcast, who gave us the free phone.
They were charming and helpful (they have clearly been trained to provide good customer service) but it is now my job to call friends with different service providers to find out which providers ID me as Ping.
I would like to divorce Ping. This relationship is not working out. However, I’m not so devoted to the dissolution of our union that I wish to call my friends to ask a.) who they thought just called them, b.) what service provider they use for their phone and c.) how they are, in the general course of their lives, because you really can’t just call people to ask them to read their caller ID and tell you what service provider they use, thank you very much, click.
I am dogless today. Ilah is expecting guests and my partner worries that our dogs are problematic. Actually only one of our dogs is problematic: the other stays in the back yard and barks at guests’ cars, but sees no reason to come in and bark at them. Ilah had multiple guests yesterday and Riley said, I’m sorry, Cheryl–I’m out here waiting for snow.
Riley loves snow. He loves to stand in the middle of a snowstorm and blink. When he does come in, he has a light blanket of snow on his back and snowflakes in his eyelashes. It’s a good day, Cheryl, he tells me. I’m claiming my husky heritage and besides, the little black dog hates the cold. So on snowy days the whole back yard is mine.
I haven’t explained that whole March concept to him yet. It could still snow again, and I hate to break his heart.
But today he has gone to work with Nancy and will probably spend most of the day outside on his lead because a.) Annie is inside and not hanging from his jowls, and b.) he is terrified of Nancy’s work cat.
Annie is not. Terrified of the cat. She has a healthy respect for the work cat: but unlike Riley, she does not shrink back and plead, don’t make me go in there…
The work cat is not terrified of Annie, either.
Be gone, dog, sayeth the work cat.
You’re funny, laughs the dog.
I’m not stepping foot into that building, Riley takes his stand. No, no, no, I’ll stay out here and suffocate in mounds of snow like the Iditarod husky that I am.
And on and on it goes.
