I’m 52. For the first time in my life I have no home telephone service. Well at least that’s what we called it up until perhaps 5 years ago – “home telephone service”. Now we call it “land line” – as if a cell phone was used solely at sea, but whatever.
My “land line” went dead sometime on September 06TH 2019. I realized so the next day on September 07TH, and I reported it to AT&T online. I was given a “service restore date” of September 16TH. Well that date came and went and AT&T did not restore my land line, and they did not contact me on my cell phone to explain why.
Since I was about to embark on my 3,000-mile road-trip to and from North Texas just a few days later I didn’t bother to contact AT&T on their lack of action. I would wait until after I return home on October 01ST to contact them. (Maybe they would restore my land line while I was away.)
Still no service on October 01ST, so I contacted them again – this time via my cell phone instead of online. After getting the runaround and getting transferred around to various AT&T employees, spokespersons, and call centers around the world about a half-dozen times I finally got someone on the other end who actually listened to me, understood me, and had the capability to react to my dilemma. I told her to disconnect my home phone service forever (she did so immediately), and send me a complete refund of what I am owed. I didn’t need my home phone for 3½ weeks, and I don’t need it anymore – especially since AT&T was non-responsive to it not working.
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that AT&T cutoff my home phone service intentionally back on September 06TH. Perhaps I was the last man standing – the last household in my neighborhood to still have a land line – and I was wasting their precious resources by still utilizing antiquated 20TH Century technology.
I still remember all 3 of my childhood telephone numbers from 1972 to 1985. I had the same telephone number here for 25½ years from March 1994 until October 01ST 2019.
Now I just have my cell phone, and I’ve had the same telephone number since my very first one in 2002. I rarely utilize my cell phone to talk to people (other than text). My cell phone is essentially a small computer, and I use it for everything else. I’d rather talk to people in person – like we used to do back in the 20TH Century.
All rights reserved (c) 2019 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries