The World Is Flat

The distance between Milan and Los Angeles is 6032 miles (that’s 9708 in Kilometers). Stef and I only get to see each other every 4 months or so, if we’re lucky. Given the fact that couples living under the same roof worry about drifting apart, it’s safe to say that we work hard to keep it together.

Communication is key, so devices like my smart phone and laptop (utilizing skype) are like gold, as is my provider. And what provider do I relying on to help keep me in touch with my fiancé? In which company’s hands do I place the health of my long distance relationship?

Bastards.

AT&T stands for American Telephone & Telegraph, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll never add a “C” to their acronym because their cell phone service sucks balls. I can’t even get reception in my office building, which is in the middle of Los Angeles! I could understand not having reception if i worked for, say, UNICEF.

Yeah. If I’m in the middle somebody’s desert, handing out Antiretroviral drugs to an indigenous starving tribe, yes, I can understand needing a damn satellite phone. But I don’t! I work next to a Mall that contains a Fuddruckers.

FUDDRUCKERS!

~

Last Saturday morning, I apparently missed a bunch of Stef’s calls. I say “apparently” because I my phone registered no missed calls or voice mails.  The only reason I knew of the missed calls was because Stef sent me a text…

“I tried to call you, but you must be busy. I’m going to bed.”

Of course I called her straight away because it seemed as though the text had just been sent. It’s almost midnight in Italy, but no way she’s asleep because she just texted me. Right?  So, I call. I get her voice mail. I leave a message. I shoot her a text ["call me!"] and I wait.

Nothing.

So now I’m a bit concerned. I wasn’t sure how to read into her text. It could’ve been a “guilt trip” text. Right?  My imagination goes stupid and I now have it in my head that she’s pissed at me. So I shoot off another text where I apologize… Again.

Nothing. No response.

So after 30 minutes I’m wondering, WTF?  At that moment my iPhone buzzes to life. I read the following seemingly cold  text…

“Sorry I missed your call.”

That’s it?  …What the hell was that?  She’s still awake?! Why didn’t she just me call back? What does she mean by “call”, singular? I sent texts, too!  Is she messing with my head?

So now I’M pissed!

It’s obviously to me that she’s trying to teach me a lesson. She wants me to see how it feels to have calls ignored. Well, I wasn’t gonna play her game! So I threw caution to the wind and I lit into her with a text.

“HEY!  I missed your calls by accident!  But you’re doing this crap on purpose and I’m not in the mood for this shit! Call me whenever you want. I don’t care anymore. I’m done.”

Of course after getting that text she calls me right back. And whoooo baby! The gal calls me back loaded for bear!

“Hey, man!  What’s with this bullshit text you sent  me?”

All hell breaks lose and we argue like idiots. But the cool thing about us is that we both realize that life is waaaay too short for this kind of nonsense, so we end the fight relatively quickly. Without either of us really understanding what the hell just happened, the issue is squashed.

~

Nine hours later…

I’m in bed, half asleep, when and all of a sudden my iPhone buzzes to life, my text alarm BLARING six times in a row in rapid succession, way too fast for a human to type and send.

Sure enough, I pick up my phone and I discover that AT&T has just vomited up six text messages from Stefania that she had sent NINE HOURS EARLIER!

It turns out that “Sorry I missed your call” was only a partial message, AT&T was only just now sending me the complete message, which went something like this…

“Sorry I missed your call.  I’m very tired from working and I need to sleep. I tried to contact you, but you must have been very busy today. That’s okay. Thank you so much for understanding. Ti amo. Stef…”

Now here’s me…

Damn. I mean… Damn.

So of course I had to call and apologize. So of course she proceeds to bust my balls.

“Yes. This is how my future husband speaks to me? Eh?  Bravo! Congratulations! You woke me up with that text! Ma…  ”

Ugh…

Okay. I admit that I  allowed my imagination to run wild, but it still pisses me off to know that if I had Sprint  this wouldn’t have happened.

Hey AT&T, Seriously, I’m stupid enough on my own; and I already have the language and cultural hurdles to jump, I don’t need you jerks adding fuel to my fire. And as for you, Steve Jobs, screw your iPad and the horse you rode in on. If you don’t get rid of AT&T I’m jumpin’ on the Droid bandwagon just as quick as you can say Jack Robinson.

(sigh)

At the end of the day, I met Stef via the internet, so I can’t hate.

Technology… Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

And that’s, as I like to say, the gist of it.

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