Talk to the Hand

Necessity prompted my phone call to Charter Communications (remember their company name because there is irony or it's cousin contained therein) the other day. I first ran through the gauntlet of: "If you want the Dutch language press 17" "If you want to be annoyed press 88" etc. Finally arriving at the: one reason I called Press 7. Fending off having euphoria to early into the torture routine I was greeted with a recorded voice. OH YEAH the one device in the universe that cannot understand when you answer a YES or NO question with a YES or a NO. The female recorded voice talked to me in childlike simplicity as to why I got stuck with it instead of someone who could ACTUALLY HELP. Evidently people who don't have a problem call Charter Communications (there it is again) just to DICK with them. The recorded voice went over things like "WAS the equipment plugged into an outlet?" and other useless information. Using the patience of JOB, I spoke outloud to a piece of equipment and tried my best to enunciate. It often had to prompt me again because it could not understand me saying HARD MULTI SYLLABLE words like Yes and NO. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and when asked for an answer I said nothing. It repeated the question 2 more times and each time I said nothing. Then it THREATENED to hangup. Can you believe it??? Threatened by a recorded
voice. Cripes. So, I just took matters in my own hands and repeatedly hit the "O" and in seconds there was a ringing answered by a HUMAN. Needless to say the human helped me with my problem and UNDERSTOOD yes and no and even harder words. I am not a total Luddite but I hope they don't install this mode of non communication at the 911 emergency call center.