I was Warned not to Write about this Anymore, but....

On or about 5/15/12, I took the plunge and gave up my trusty Blackberry cell phone for the highly acclaimed iPhone. I went for the 4G model and took home the 4G-4S, whatever the hell that means? At that point, I may as well have just disconnected my service all together for the lack of this phone company to accommodate me in any way whatsoever. Yes, I'm bitching about AT&T. In fact I'm contemplating taking away at least one of their T's! From this point on, lets refer to them as A&T. eliminating the T for telephone.

No longer willing to accept their inadequate service and refusing to being held hostage by this group of uncaring capitalists, I've decided to blow any credit rating that I may still have and just break my contract and NO, I'm not willing to pay them 10 cents for my freedom that they have stolen from me. 

I searched the Internet looking for a Walmart location close by and finally found one about 5 miles away. Finding this shopping center, about the size of Rhode Island, was no easy task. Once in the shopping center, you almost needed a seeing eye dog to find the Walmart within it. Suddenly I saw a Sam's Club sigh and noticed that it was right next to a Walmart, hooray! Due to the time of the year, I had to park pretty far from their front door, but exercise was on my "to do" list (some day).

Approaching a little woman, I saw a name tag and asked her where the electronics department was. Due to her heavy accent, I couldn't understand her, but I smiled and pointed off to nowhere. She smiled and shook her head up and down. Ah, there it was! As I walked about a city block, I noticed the empty counter, chock full of phones and just 2 employees. First there was a tall black man that sort of looked like he came from Ethiopia. He was about 6' 6" and extremely dark in color. He was also helping a lady already. Next was a man that looked like he was intentionally ignoring the public, with his back to everyone and digging inside of a drawer. Sizing him up further, he was about my height, 6', wearing a Walmart vest and his pants were too short with non matching socks. I did a silent, lol (an oxymoron). Yep, this was my man! After a discreet ahem....  He looked around and I smiled and asked if he were available to assist me. He looked to see if anyone else was around  and finally said, "Sure, what can I do for you"? I started with, I am a an A&T customer and I am totally displeased with my service, so I was wondering if any of the other carriers can use my existing phone on their network and I do not want T-Mobile, because I understand they use the same network as A&T. He agreed and added that T-Mobile was not even as good as A&T! So then I told him that I just want to sign up for Verizon and buy an iPhone 5. He started offering me options. Like I can go to 32nd and Bell Rd and there is a place called Sun Telephone that will unlock my current phone for a charge. I asked if Verizon will give me a discount if I have my own device already and he said NO! So, other than the extra $200 cash out of pocket, there was no advantage to unlocking my phone for $60. Then he told me that A&T would charge me a fortune to break my contract. When I still didn't flinch, he said, like $500! I just wasn't scared!

I then said, I'll just go ahead and buy an iPhone 5 and sign a new contract with Verizon. He said, "Sorry, we don't carry those". WTF? Then he added, "The process of signing you up takes about 2 1/2 hours and I am off in an hour and a half and we don't have chairs! Chairs, why do you need chairs? He said, "Well you'll want to sit down after I start the paperwork and there's no place for you to sit" and he motioned to his counter. That's when he sent me to a Verizon store about 7 miles down the 101 towards town, where they can help me and they have chairs! I sensed a referral set up where he sends customers to his buddy and he gets a kickback. I smiled, shook his hand and thanked him for his useful help and then bit my lip when I thought of his mismatched socks and left. It wouldn't have done him any good to mention them and I knew he probably had another pair just like them at home!

Just as I was walking out of the joint, thinking what a waste of time the whole trip was, I looked up and saw a vision! It almost glowed. It was a sign about 40 yards away and it said, "McDonald's" Walmart had it's own McDonald's and I was starving! Almost in a trance, time stood still as I mindlessly walked in and ordered a Number 1. Big Mac, large friend and small diet drink... Tomorrow is another day!