Wednesday through Saturday was spent in the middle of nowhere. Not as middle of nowhere as some places I have been, but not anyplace particularly wonderful, and not a tourist destination. There were two things there that I would want to do, and one of them was only open to visitors after lunch on certain days, so we were not able to do that at all due to scheduling problems. The other thing we did Thursday morning. The rest of our time off was either spent eating (mostly Mexican food) or doing nothing.

The motel mostly sucked (though I have been in much worse), but we knew what we would probably be getting, just that in our budget there weren't any other options (or the other options looked worse). But at least I had Syfy on cable, and other things on cable. (Now that I am in the nice motel, there is no Syfy, and most of the rest of the cable sucks).

At some point I tried to get some help from my cell phone company. I wanted the most basic of information, and they wouldn't give it to me. I wanted to know which chargers work with which phones. I had my phone, but I'd left my charger at home. I could use a different charger from the same company, but I just wanted to make sure they were compatible, cause I had been warned earlier that using the wrong charger would damage the phone (and also I had prior experience damaging a tape recorder by leaving it charging for more than a week).

So there should be lists somewhere of all the chargers that go with which phones, and which phones that can use what chargers, and there should be a master list of all the phones and all the chargers and which ones work together. But they refused to send me the list, because I could not give them some number off of my phone, which I could not read because my phone had no power.

My phone had no power. That was the whole reason for asking about the chargers.

There were suggestions of which buttons to push on the phone to get the number, or that I should call and talk to a real person, etc.... It took many exchanges before they seemed to understand the words NO POWER. Eventually, they called my home, but I'm pretty sure that in my first message I told them that I was out of town, and that was why I couldn't use my own charger.

Eventually a friend talked me through the process of Googling enough things that I found the information without their help. The charger I had worked with eight phones, and after Googling some images of phones I found that mine was one of the eight. At least, I hoped that was right, as Googling images is not always the best way of finding the name of something.

Three hours after I charged my phone, I got yet another email from them, that they were still trying to help me. Except that they still didn't send me the list, so they weren't trying very hard. I wrote back that someone else had already done their job for them, and that I would file a complaint when I got home.

They still didn't get it. They finally answered my first question, that not all chargers work with all phones, and that I might be able to get some of the numbers that they need to help me by removing the phone's battery....

I guess they missed the whole part that I didn't need their help anymore because someone else did their job for them. I haven't emailed them back. And they still didn't send me a list. This is just the most basic thing to know when you have a cell phone, and the company is telling me that they can't send me a list of all the phones that work with all the chargers because I didn't give them the number of my phone. They don't need my number to send me a master list, they're just lazy or something.

It's hard to believe that anyone is this stupid.

I'm really mad. I'm thinking about making a lot of trouble for them. I'm even wondering if I should find a really annoying lawyer.

It's sad, because right before this happened, I was thinking that I should start using this phone more. I originally got it as an emergency phone, but there really aren't a lot of emergencies, and over time I collected over a thousand minutes that I wasn't using. And my phone at home doesn't get much use either, mainly bill collectors leave messages. By the time anyone that I know wants to leave me a message, the machine is full. If not for the possibility that I might need to call 911, I probably could just get rid of it.

So now I don't know what to do. I was going to spend about a hundred and fifty dollars on new minutes for next year, but since they were less than helpful, maybe this isn't even the best for an emergency phone.

And we did have an emergency of a sort, though I ended up not needing the phone. We had a flat tire Sunday morning, but my husband managed to change it himself, even though we were on the freeway at the time and had to pull over onto the grass and work with other cars speeding past us.

If we had been stuck there with the flat tire and no phone, I'd definitely be getting a lawyer.

So we lost about two hours of our only full day off while we waited at the tire place. But now we are all worn out from our one day off and our attempts at squeezing in tourist stuff before lunch. Unfortunately, we will not have Sunday or Monday here like I thought. We have to drive back Sunday, and while my husband usually has Monday off, this time he has to work in Oklahoma again. So there will be this rush to get me home before he has to head out again.

Anyway, this morning was nice. A bit rushed, but nice.