random thoughts – Day 1,476 – (Monday) – forward and back

A couple weeks ago, after a steady barrage of oversized postcard mailers extolling the virtues of Verizon 5G Home Internet and the too-frequent text messages promising bonus offers, I caved. In a moment of weakness after receiving the text stating it was my “last chance to get the Nintendo Switch and a $200 Target gift card,” I called about the service. 

The rep on the phone was helpful and the next thing I knew, I was enthusiastically signing up for the Verizon Home Internet package. The rep said to expect a delivery of equipment on the following Monday. It's been more than seven years since moving in at The BungaLowell, and Verizon finally has moved Internet service beyond the dial-up equivalent that was available in my area. Unfortunately, FIOS still isn't available yet, so we haven't fully moved forward. I live in a city, two blocks from a University, and sometimes it all feels so primitive and backward.

While waiting for the delivery, I did what should have been done earlier and checked the costs for streaming TV services. I already have Netflix, which I watch a lot, and Prime Video, which I rarely watch. My cable is accessed for the very occasional network TV show and Max, which was just enough steps away from never used to make me nervous about being without it. 

Shoots!

The rates for streaming TV subscriptions checked were around $70 or $80. When combined with the new Internet cost and existing cell phone cost, the savings would be  exactly nothing, or a cost greater than the current Internet and cable package with Comcast and cell phone service with Verizon. Dang. 

Two days after signing up, and two days earlier than promised, the package arrived with the necessary equipment. By then, I had decided to cancel the plan and didn't open it.

When I called to cancel the new plan, the rep who helped me was as nice and helpful as the one who signed me up. He cancelled the service and told me to expect a return mailing label so I could ship the equipment back.

Today, the second box arrived from Verizon. When the mail carrier arrived, I was in the front yard taking pictures of the signs of spring, which are moving forward as expected, undeterred by the prolonged stretch of raw, cold, gray, rainy weather. 

The Bleeding heart shoots are emerging.

Green shoots are emerging at the multiple sites of the lilies and irises that I intend to thin every year and then don’t. The red shoots of the Bleeding hearts are coming up by the front steps where they grow more wildly out of control each year despite being thinned annually. 

The mail carrier set the flat box in the mailbox with some postcards and mailers. I eagerly opened the new box, glad that I’d be able to send the first box back. The new package contained an unneeded flat box in which to send back the equipment, which is still in the original, unopened box. There was a sheet of instructions to send back the equipment, but what was missing was the one thing I need – the preaddressed, postage-paid label with which to send back the box. So close, and yet, so not. A step forward, a step back. Looks like I’ll be chatting with another customer service rep this week.