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AT&T Fornicates With Insects

I want to emphasize up front that I don't know that AT&T is actively involved in the southeast Asian sex trade.

I am not 100% sure that all their employees are thieves. And I doubt that all AT&T executives have hard drives stuffed full of fetish porn.

Calling from Italy, here's the conversation I had with AT&T employee Needledick (at least, I think that was his name) a few months ago:

Me: Hey, I'm having a hard time getting my bills over here. I have an iPhone I turned off since we're living in Italy. So, where do I stand with you guys?

Needledick: You owe us $831.

Me: Fucking hell. Okay, here's my credit card number. xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx. Now am I all clear?

Needledick: Yes.

Me: I am totally straight with AT&T, right?

Needledick: Totally.

Me: Under no circumstances would you do something asshole-ish under the misapprehension that I still owe you something, right?

Needledick: I swear on my extensive collection of man-on-donkey porn.

So, a month later, I'm in LA where Katherine is getting some prize. The kid and I race over to the Apple store to get the new 3G phones. We stand there for TWO FUCKING HOURS while an exasperated Apple employee tries to get an answer from AT&T as to why they won't give me a phone. On the phone AT&T says (and I am not making this up) you owe us 831 dollars. AND you owe us nothing.

$831 and nothing.

So we won't give you a phone. Okay . . . now we'll give you a phone. Because now we agree that you paid us $831. Yes, for the last 2 hours we've denied that you paid us the $831, but now we totally agree that you did, in fact, pay us $831. Hey, we just enjoy stealing 2 hours of your life. We're AT&T and it's possible -- but not proven -- that all of us are sons of cheap, alley-kneeling whores.

Months pass. We enjoy our 3G iPhones. Until today when they suddenly stop working. Why? The recording says because of "an unpaid balance."

I find a land line. I call the AT&T robot. Try to guess what the robot thinks I owe? That's right: zero. I owe nothing. And yet, my phone is off. Huh. What a surprise.

A full hour working the phone tree. West coast accounting. East coast accounting. The AT&T Fuck You center which says I owe $831. Then I'm passed off to the AT&T Sand In Your Sphincter Anal Rape center which updates that: it's now $980.

Bend over, bitch, we are AT&T and while we are perhaps not the people behind most of the atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries, hey, who knows?

Just under a grand. Now my phones are back on.

For my part there are no hard feelings. Because I'm not entirely convinced that AT&T is just another word for Mafia. And I don't think the company's business model is indistinguishable from that of an extortionist.

But I am sure, beyond doubt, that no man on AT&T's board of directors has ever pleased a woman.

“AT&T Fornicates With Insects”