2/23/10

limbo - n - a place or state of restraint or confinement; a place or state of neglect or oblivion; an intermediate or transitional place or state; a state of uncertainty

I'm not sure if we're there just yet. Not on the level of the infamous Laredo incident, for example, but some parallels are starting to emerge. I called our road service department this morning. The guy who took my call said that the repairs had been authorized and it was all up to the Kenworth dealer to figure out when I would be rolling again. I also asked him about the 'driver abuse' nonsense. He made it sound like this was a pretty standard routine when a warranty claim is submitted. As he put it - "What do you have on that truck, 550,000 miles?" A little over 500,000, I told him. "Well there's your abuse right there." Okay then.

The next call was to the dealership. The guy in the service department told me that they were finishing up their estimate and then they would have to get approval from CTL for the necessary repairs. If you need to re-read the paragraph before this one, go ahead. I'll wait. ... ... Okay, see where we're going with this? Our guys say one thing (the repairs have been authorized). Their guys say another thing (they're waiting for authorization). On the way to limbo here, quite possibly. He then told me that there was almost no chance that I would be rolling today.

After calling down to the desk and reserving my room for another day, I tried to find something good on television. It turns out that there's a reason I don't watch television. Bunch of worthless garbage. At some point in the afternoon, I heard a weird noise from my cell phone. It wasn't the damned text message alert and it wasn't a ringtone. I grabbed it and saw that the screen said "inactive smartchip." You know the standard routine there, right? Turn off the phone, pop out the SIM card, replace the card, and fire it back up. No dice.

After a minute or two, I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Not too long ago, I ordered a new cell phone. It's sitting on my parents' kitchen table right now, waiting for me to come home and retrieve it. For one reason or another, that new phone was activated today without my knowledge. So, when the new SIM card was brought online, my existing SIM card was disabled. After a brief interaction with the online chat service at att.com, I was told that it wouldn't be a problem. I just needed to go to a company store and have them give me a new SIM card for my existing phone. There would be no charge and everything would work fine.

8401 Gateway West - That's where I had to go. 10635 Gateway West -That's where I was. Can't be that far, right? So I headed out and started walking. There was a Sprint store within half a mile of my motel, but I didn't need a Sprint store. There was a T Mobile store within a mile of my motel, but I didn't need a T Mobile store. I needed good old American Telephone & Telegraph. Three freaking miles away. That sucked. By the time I got back to the motel, my nifty little ankles were starting to swell. Fortunately for me, the gas station on the corner sells pain relievers. Frosty, cold, pain relievers.

For obvious reasons, it's pointless for me to try to predict what will happen tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to start abusing my truck again or something. But what if I really did wind up unemployed? Might have to do some real abusing then, eh Harry?



Jackass.