Best Part, Worst Part

Sometimes at the dinner table we answer the question, "What was the best and worst part of your day."

Tonight my daughter said she had a great day. No worst parts. The best part, she said, was coming home from school knowing it's the weekend.

My husband's day was not so great. He could not think of a best part. The worst part was that he found out his favorite computer guy at work (the one who helps him most) gave two weeks' notice. We served him a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream so he would have a "best part."

My worst part was dealing with Cingular. My mother-in-law's cell phone got stolen at the airport on Monday. So today I called her cell number, and some guy answered.

"Where'd you get the phone you're using?" I asked him.

"Huh?"

I repeated myself, perhaps a wee bit more assertively.

Click.

I drove to the Cingular center to cancel the service so he couldn't make international calls or something. The guys there told me they were unable to handle it for me. They said I had to call Cingular. So I stood there in the Cingular store and called Cingular. (How is that for customer service?) The "retention expert" I reached said he could make Mom's phone inoperable, but I have to keep paying for the service until July. Contract says so. When I asked the guys at the center why in the world two guys in a Cingular store could not handle a customer service need, they told me Cingular does not want the store personnel handling cancellations as they do not specialize in "retention." Translation: They aren't savvy enough at pressuring customers to keep what they don't want. So they have to refer customers to those who are.

That's when I told myself the blog is mightier than the sword. If you are thinking about getting the C-service, may I recommend instead that you try T-Mobile? Or Sprint? Verizon? Virgin Mobile?

The best part of my day was filling my car with gas for two bucks per gallon. Not three bucks. Not two-fifty. Not even two-fifteen. Two bucks!

What was the best and worst part of your day? Send your rants and raves, and I will enter you in a drawing to receive Mary DeMuth's fab new novel, Wishing on Dandelions.

Oh, and thanks if you are one of those who were pulling for me on the TV interview. We talked about everything from Sermon on the Mount to marriage to infertility in the course of five minutes. And I didn't even fall over and rip my dress. Frankly, I'm amazed at how much they included on their web site about the four books in the Coffee Cup series. Check it out.

Don't forget to enter the drawing by leaving a comment. I plan to pull the name of the lucky winner out of the hat on Monday.

P.S. I went to the Cingular site and found the customer service page. I located the place where I could submit a question and typed, "Check out the rant at www.aspire2.blogspot.com." I received an automated reply: "We have no documents related to rant. Please check the spelling or use a different word."