Tuesday, December 13, 2011

"Did we solve your problem?" Yes? No?

Yesterday I felt crazy. I felt I had mentally gone off a cliff and there was no way of climbing back up. It started out with trying to explain a problem on my Author’s Page to Amazon. Their response was so inappropriate that where the e-mail message asked “Did we solve your problem?,” I wanted to hit the “no” prompt with a sledgehammer. When they sweetly allowed me to re-state the problem, everything I wrote sounded crazy and needlessly complicated.

I thought, Ooooh they’re never going to understand this in Calcutta. What’s more they’re going to think I’m a big whiny baby for wanting my book cover re-instated when they have starving children living in metal shacks. They will purposely write back a bizarre unrelated message to teach me Zen patience and acceptance and ask again hopefully, “Did we solve your problem?” meaning “Have we taught you the meaning of life and living in the now instead of grasping greedily for nonsense outcomes that will not translate into happiness?”

I felt crazy for another reason. I bought something on Amazon on a gift card and when the order went through, they asked “Do you want to apply the balance in your account to this order?” This message didn’t make sense unless Amazon was trying to prey on my dim wittedness and get me to pay twice. When I clicked on the help button and talked to a very nice person, I felt crazy asking her “Why is that message there? Why would I want to pay more money for the same item?”

I felt crazy for another reason. The prescription eye drops I put in my eyes every day usually sting like crazy but the new batch doesn’t sting at all. How was I going to tell that to the pharmacist? It sounded crazy. “Hello, my eye drops don’t sting do you thing big Pharma has bungled the formula and now I am going to go blind? There’s no good way of saying that.

Talking to the phone company used to be a reliable way of feeling not only crazy but in need of anger management. One of my children had a telephone problem for two years that the phone company refused to acknowledge. She would lose phone service every time it rained. Try telling that to the repair dept. For two years she pleaded with Verizon to fix the problem. She would go through the menu and they would ask her to “speak” her problem. “Did I hear you say you want to order the premium package?” was Verizon’s response.

Today, I am only engaging in activities that I can control. I’m writing my blog and sending out Christmas checks.

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