random thoughts – Day 1,649 – (Sunday) –food and data

Mac and cheese.

The mostly quiet and relaxing Sunday included the start of the fall/winter menu changeover in The BungaLowell kitchen. The reserves of cheese ends from the freezer were grated for a baked macaroni and cheese. The thought of mac and cheese has materialized several times, but it was during the hot weather when running the oven was undesirable. 

As the rotini cooked in one saucepan, a half onion and a large carrot were chopped and sautéed in olive oil and butter in the larger soup kettle. When the rotini was cooked, the water from the cooked pasta was poured into the soup kettle with a quart of broth from the freezer.  Later, the last of a jar of salsa, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of black beans, and a packet of onion soup mix. Fall food season was officially underway.

The quiet afternoon spent playing a game on the phone was interrupted by a text message with the shocking news from the cell provider that somehow there was only 10% of data left with 21 days left in the billing cycle. Usually, there is a chunk of data that rolls over each month, and if it gets close to full usage, it’s with a day left in the cycle. Bumping into the data max scenario nine days into the cycle was unbelievable. The next thing I knew, I was on a laptop chat with a rep to explore my options, after a frustrating search on the company’s website. I ended up upgrading the plan I’ve had for years with no issues. The rep made it sound like this was no big deal and my plan could be updated as of today.

A text with the plan info and agreement was sent to the phone. Clicking the button to confirm led to a plain screen with a spinning circle that lasted forever. From the laptop, the rep was alerted to the situation on the phone. They dropped a new link to the agreement to the laptop, which also went to the same spinning circle as the phone. That’s about when the User Feedback box popped up and I was ready to toss both the laptop and the phone out the window.

It took more than an hour to add more data to my plan. I was offered six months of free Disney, which was pulled back a minute later as not available on whatever I have/was getting. That was okay with me, because I have no interest in Disney channel.

When it was finally all done, the rep typed, “great, this will go into effect on the October 21 billing.” Ummm, no. The whole point is that I needed it now. There is no way I want to be monitoring data for the next 21 days, six of which I will be on vacation. We backed up the process a couple steps and a new link to an updated agreement was sent to the phone.

Soup!

As annoying as the entire phone/data/ ordeal was, I felt fortunate that it happened today and not when I’m away on vacation. I’m just dying to know what caused the sudden unusually large data usage. And it was nice to sit down for a supper of fresh soup dressed with shredded cheese and a slice of hearty bread with soft butter. Cooking ahead definitely has its rewards.