After waffling most of the summer, I finally committed to going back for my high school reunion in Minnesota, crossing a pair of time zones and spending too much time in airports (Phoenix, really??) to get there — but that was the price of delaying, which is my own fault. And while there, why not go see a Twins game at new Target Field? So I made arrangements with a friend, N, to go see a game, and hoped to be able to buy tickets online but simply mail them to her home in a suburb of Minneapolis.
I was waiting for a call from a friend out here in the bay area, C, but had plenty of time and used the speedy new PC to find and buy the tickets, navigating the online shopping cart stuff, and thought I’d get a page asking where to send ‘em. I didn’t. They wanted me to print the tickets at home. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the new souped-up PC is not connected to a printer. (Meanwhile, I’m watching the clock tick closer to the time for C’s phone call, 9 am.)
So I found a number for the Twins ticket sales and, as it was 8:45 – 8:50, I hoped to be able to finalize the purchase before C called. I navigated the automated phone menu tree garbage and actually got alive human being. (Which always feels like a small personal victory.)
Perhaps a South Asian or Middle Eastern woman. Very precise diction. I explained about having no connected printer. She put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. The minutes ticked away. She came back on and told me in no uncertain terms that I had printed the tickets already.
I told her that was impossible. I explained about the new computer / old computer—but apparently I had opened a screen to print the tickets, I don’t know. So I asked to talk to the supervisor. She put me on hold again.
It was now close to 9 am, and I didn’t want to miss C’s call—which I expected on our landline while on hold on my cell. As I waited, an email arrived on my old computer. From the Minnesota Twins. I opened it. It had my ticket information. The old computer IS connected to a printer, and it had a link to print tickets. So I hit print. And got the tickets. Screw them and their putting me on hold, I’ve got the tickets now, ha ha ha. I hung up.
The land line rang a couple minutes later. I thought it was C. It wasn’t—it was the South Asian or maybe Middle Eastern woman from the Minnesota Twins! She identified herself and accused me of hanging up on her. (Who says customer service is dead?)
She explained that her supervisor was going to mail the tickets to the address I had supplied for my friend, N, and under absolutely no terms should I print out those tickets! I explained to her that while on hold I had gotten the email on the old computer and printed them, and that I was waiting for another call. What did she want me to do? She politely put me on hold again.
I realized that now if C tried to call, he’d get a busy signal. (That’ll teach me to hang up on a customer service rep.)
She came back on to tell me to tear up those tickets. Under absolutely no terms was I to keep the tickets! I told her I would, and we wished each other a good day. Whatever else, I appreciate civility. Meanwhile, C didn’t call the rest of the morning.
So I’ve sent him an email, and that’s about as connected as I feel like being for the rest of the day. Two Twins tickets are theoretically in the mail to N inMinnesota, and that feels we’re like making some headway, perhaps.
Anachronist or not: Progress Marches On!
OmbudsBen 
Oh computers. They SEEM like such a good idea, don’t they? I hope that you did not, in fact, tear up the printed tickets. Or that if you did, you still have access to the email. Just in case something else goes wrong. Why would something else go wrong? Well….because it can.
And they’re selling computers without email and Word? That’s incredibly lame. You can go buy the programs, I know, but they’re not exactly cheap. Blech. Your solution seems good, especially if you have plenty of room on your desk. But there will be times when it will be a pain in the ass, as you have already discovered.