As far back as I can care to remember, I have always had a shorter fuse than most. Whether it be the midwestern mother of three going 30 under in the left lane or the kid sitting next to me in lecture who absolutely refuses to stop tapping his pencil to some polyrhythm that even Charlie Parker couldn’t wrap his mind around, I tend to get riled up over things which others can simply shake off.

I have never been able to truly explain it; why such menial things can make my blood boil to a degree that I fear a heart attack may hit me in my late twenties. When I’m in that state of mind, I find a way to convince myself that a mystical, omnipotent force is out there, is out to get me, and is hellbent on getting me to lose my cool in this postal office at eight in the morning. A god damn conspiracy, dare I say it.

Rather than act on any murderous urges, I feel that channeling my not-so-quiet fury into a weekly summation of annoyances will help any other wayward rage machines looking for literally anyone else to stew in anger with. The mouthpiece of a group far too steamed to give any semblance of a thought out response and analysis, I suppose. And this week, the god damn cosmic sadist chose its weapon well; Spectrum Internet’s customer service line.

My recent flight from the soulless husk that is West LA to the lively thoroughfare of culture, food, and  drug that is Ktown brought with it many a joy, but did not forget to drag along all of the infuriating pains that come with any move. Water, power, gas, the works. With minimal effort and a few phone calls I made while half asleep, those were set up within the first 48 hours. However, in this age of (honestly, fake) remote work, the most essential, is the setting up of an internet service that both (1) does not fail completely when more than one chromebook is connected and (2) does not cost me half of a minimum wage paycheck.

Upon viewing the options, it seemed Spectrum was the service of choice. Within a week, my roommates and I were all watching The Sopranos whilst simultaneously livestreaming MMO games and downloading terabytes worth of wikipedia articles with ease. It was network bliss. A bliss I only had the fortune of enjoying for about two days, before reality hit my router and wallet like a jetliner.

You see, in the excitement of the move, I made the brutal mistake of forgetting to cancel the service I had set up at the old place. This meant that not only did I watch $66.27 vanish from my checking account for no real reason, but that I was now tasked with figuring out how the fuck to make that never happen again. In my naivety, I logged into my Spectrum account, hoping to find a tab or button I could simply click to end my service. Much to my chagrin, I was not met with a message stating “Your service has been canceled. Thank You!” but with a much more upsetting pop up reading, “To cancel internet service, call Spectrum’s support line.” My eyes began to feel hot, and I was quickly losing feeling in my hands. Incensed is a better descriptor of the way i felt in that moment.

Why is it that all of these corporate shills make you perform a reach around handy just to confirm that, yes, I am in fact no longer interested in gifting you money in exchange for NOTHING? It was an answer I was desperately hoping to find as I begrudgingly picked up the phone to dial the company’s support line: 1-800-GOFUCKURSELF.  I would like to say the process was a speedy and that the customer service representative was helpful, but my moral fibers simply could not handle stretching the truth to that magnitude.

After waiting on hold for what seemed like two hours but was probably around 30 minutes, I was met with an electronic voice asking how they could help me today. A sudden sensation of deja vu washed over me completely, as I had realized this was the same bot I began the call with, asking me how they could help today. I could not, and cannot, for the life of me begin to understand what was occurring on their end for those thirty minutes that allowed me to enter a time loop, all to end up right where I started. However, knowing my tendency to let emotions flare a bit too early, I decided to give the process a chance; everybody has to deal with this, right?

That emotional growth and maturity lasted all of about thirty seconds, as with each and every failed attempt to get the bot to recognize that I was asking for a human being, I felt my blood boil one degree hotter. Eventually, the sorry excuse of code and generative vocal AI picked up what I was putting down and put me through to an actual representative of the high-tech and innovative Spectrum. At first, the call was moving along as I had initially hoped. I let the nice woman know that I was interested in cancelling my service. She asked the billion questions they always “need” to ask: Why are you cancelling? Did you want to improve the speeds for a small fee increase each month? Did you need assistance setting up our (and only our) service at your new residence? I played along as best I could, hoping my anger was masked through the customer service voice I earned as a seasoned veteran of the game.  I know ball, but I had a sneaking suspicion that this lady was well aware of it.

It seems she saw through the facade, as she turned my sneaking suspicion into an opportunity to sell me on a big ticket item. In the sweetest Mormon missionary voice she could muster, she had the god damn nerve to ask me which mobile carrier I was with. Slider outside. Two could play at this, so I batted back with a “I’m on Verizon and I’m not too interested in switching at the moment.” I am ashamed to say I underestimated the woman, as she, without hesitation, mentioned that Spectrum’s towers are actually Verizon towers. Curveball in the dirt and of course I’m chasing it. I insist that I’m not interested in switching, but persistence never seems to die when there’s dollars at stake, as she begged me to ask my roommates if they were interested. Upon my saying that I’d shoot them a text, she let me know that she would call me back in a few hours to see what they had said before she quickly said “thank you!” and hung up right in my face. And BANG, 97 inside corner. I’m out. I was always out. It seems i’ve been out since the day I was born.

And just like that my 45 was over, and all I left the employee parking lot with was an empty stomach and a bone to pick with every customer service line at every company, possibly ever.  Hours passed, shifts ended, and yet I still held a vengeance against this godforsaken support line. On my traffic-riddled journey back home, I gave the line a ring in one last hail mary to stop the eternal recurring charge from draining my dwindling checking account.

This time, the anti-hero from that one Will Smith film actually cooperated and connected me to a real person right away. And by right away, I mean that the hold lasted only ten minutes as opposed to the expected half hour. Things were looking up as she and I went back and forth through the usual spiel, polite and such.  To my surprise, there was no dreaded battle at the plate when I gently informed her that my roommates and I were all not interested in any mobile service. We actually had arrived at the “confirmation of my cancellation of service and complete stoppage of connection” stage of the call and I am not ashamed to say I took my hands off the wheel and rubbed them together cartoonish-villain style.

However, amidst my celebration while on mute, the lady hit me with one final haymaker that Ali himself couldn’t have predicted: “Let me just confirm this with my manager, I’ll be back in a minute or two.” My heart sank to the pit of my stomach as I had already recognized this as the sham that it always was, always has been, and always will be. One minute passed, and then two. I let out a chuckle as minute number ten rolled around. Fair play, she really got me good, but surely she’d be back anytime soon now. Twenty more minutes fly by. It seemed I would be trapped in this endless void of call, upsell, hold, rinse, and repeat until I was six feet under with an ethernet cable wrapped around my neck under a tombstone reading “Owed Spectrum $66.27.”

At this point, I fear my tinfoil hat has melted into my brainwaves permanently, as I cannot help but blame that galactically evil nebulous for placing this evil unto me.  That otherworldly, unstoppable force channeling all of its negativity and torment through moments in my life with pinpoint accuracy. Yet, I simply refuse to allow that weight to burden my shoulders in the day-to-day. Sure, I had a Spotify subscription to cancel, but one click later and that was all over.

It seems that time truly heals all, and that eventually the sting of my road-home phone call would subside into mental oblivion. No more subscriptions to cancel, no more cosmic vendetta against me. All was well. That is, until, I looked down at the violent ding emanating from my phone, which displayed a notification reading, “Fubo TV: $91.36 has been charged to the card associated with your account.” It feels pointless to mention that I did not remember, nor do I want to remember, that I had signed up for a free trial on this app for the sole purpose of tuning in to every 49ers game like the faithful Brock Purdy supporter I was always meant to be.  But the cosmic sadist never forgets…

As I buckle in for another long drive to Ktown, I can only hope that AI has drastically improved its vocal recognition in the past…thirty six hours. Wish me good fortune, as only the Lord himself could tell you how soured the relationship between Lady Luck and I has become.