Yesterday, I spent four hours on the phone with Time Warner Cable, accomplishing absolutely nothing. I reckon that the fury and frustration I feel is not uncommon; perhaps you have experienced this horror, too. Now, I knew that I could not be trusted to have a reasoned response to my experience in the maw of the soul-crushing Time Warner phone gulag…so I decided that this was a matter best left to my alter-ego THOR SOMMERSETH, SCION OF THE CLAN SOMMERSETH. Take it away, Thor:
Dear Sirs and/or Madams and/or Chimps Waving Diplomas from the University of Phoenix, Florida State, or the Carvel Ice Cream College of Knowledge:
My name is Thor Sommerseth. Through my fathers’ fathers, I carry the bloodline of the god Heimdallr (YES, HE WHO SOUNDED THE HORN OF GLALLAHORN), the VERY SAME Heimdallr who owns the golden-maned horse Gulltoppr and keeps watch for the onset of Ragnarök while drinking fine mead in his dwelling Himinbjörg, located where the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst meets heaven! MY FATHER’S FATHERS have fought for the PRIDE of our people alongside Tyr, Loki, and the Valkyrie Sigrdrifa. On my mother’s side, I am descended from the Clan Adelbaum of Bayside, a proud if occasionally fawning family who once got in an argument with the guy behind the meat counter in Waldbaums, for which we ultimately apologized (we did not know that the fellow’s son had just been hospitalized for shingles, and we wouldn’t have been so forceful in our opinion about the fattiness of the corned beef if we had known this). Oh, and I believe my cousin, Marvin Adelbaum, played second trumpet in the Port Washington High School band sometime in the mid-1970s.
In other words, Time Warner Cable, you have met a formidable foe!
I, Thor Sommerseth, am a man who values every SECOND of his time on this planet, as I prepare for my entry into one of the 540 doors of Asgard, where I hope to spend eternity walking alongside the 800 Vikings in Valhalla! My time CANNOT be spent dealing with CHIMPS who obstruct my PLAN to relocate my Time Warner Cable Service to an apartment closer to a subway line that will carry I, Thor Sommerseth, into the Isle of Manhattan, where I occasionally need to go in order to serve the needs of Mammon. Am I, Thor Sommerseth, to SUFFER at the hands of your LAZY MINIONS because of MY NEED to move somewhere where I will not be held hostage by the transfers necessitated by the merciless irregularities of the G, J, and L Train!?!
Yet I, Thor Sommerseth, spent FOUR HOURS on the phone yesterday, experiencing a torture akin to the FIRES of Múspellsheimr (which, as you surely know, is home to the fire demons and ruled by the giant Surt, the SWORN enemy of Aesir). This is NOT a place where I, Thor Sommerseth, want to dwell! I had things to do! I had to pay tribute, as I do every Monday and Tuesday, to my human ancestors in the land of Miðgarðr, as they continue to battle the Midgard Serpent who lives in the sea that surrounds our world! I also had to see if the Pontiac Bonneville gifted to me in 2004 by The Clan Adelbaum was done at the shop; see, there were some problem with the Manifold Intake Gasket. Oh and I also had to go to the CVS to pick up some prescriptions, and my daily quart of Clamato, THE NECTAR OF VILI AND VE, THE BROTHERS OF ODIN, and also a fine beverage I first became acquainted with when Sarah Adelbaum, another cousin of mine, married into the Clan Waxman of Toronto.
And thanks to the utter uselessness of the mewling, scratching, whining, 50 Shades of Gray-reading CHIMPS you have in your employ, my day was SHOT completely, and I, Thor Sommerseth, was able to accomplish NONE of these things, except I was able to call the shop that has the Bonneville, and wouldn’t you know, it turns out they found ANOTHER problem, apparently an engine coolant temperature sensor needs to be replaced, too. Wouldn’t you just know it.
I am especially outraged by your INCOMPETENCY because I, Thor Sommerseth, have considerable experience in the Cable Television business! From 1992 to 1997, I was a Vice President at Mørke Guder Systemer (Dark Gods Systems) , the second largest cable system in the city of Sandnessjøen! I had total dominion over the realm of 3 AM to 6 AM programming, and I had full hiring and firing power over the mailroom! Now, the mailroom was just one fellow, a slightly disabled but cheery chap named Håkon Øyvind, son of Torbjørn, but he was compelled to do my bidding; I, Thor Sommerseth was his Lord and Master, at least between 3 and 6 A.M.
During my Time at Mørke Guder Systemer, I, Thor Sommerseth, introduced some remarkable programming that made our cable system the second most successful cable system in the pre-dawn hours in the whole Arctic Region of Coastal Norway! These shows, which you most certainly have heard of, included Leave It To The Beaver-like Creature, Maeritt, Who Gives Us Bad Dreams By Sitting On Us In Our Sleep, and That Girl (Who Married Fossegrimmen, Who Lives Under the Waterfall and Teaches Humans Violin If They Bring Him Meat). I, Thor Sommerseth, was also responsible for the morning Death Metal Yoga Program, Pilates With Impaled Nazarene. This was a very controversial show, because Impaled Nazarene is, of course, Finnish and NOT Norwegian! Boy, I, Thor Sommerseth, sure took some flak for that! In fact, the church I visited at the time was burned to the ground by followers of the band Keep of Kalessin; and then the church I went to because my primary church had been burned to the ground was, in turn, burned to the ground by followers of the band Obtained Enslavement.
In any event, to say that I, Thor Sommerseth, was outraged by your lack of professionalism and the inability of the CHIMPS on your staff to master the most rudimentary tasks required to meet even the loosest definition of customer relations and task fulfillment, would be an understatement worthy of Freyr, the son of Njord (ha! Get it? I thought you might enjoy a little levity! Even CHIMPS at TWC enjoy a little joke now and then!).
Actually…I, Thor Sommerseth would like to apologize…
TO CHIMPS! I have frequently compared them to Time Warner Cable’s employees in this missive, and that is deeply insulting TO CHIMPS!
Chimps are noble creatures who we now know have learned the Secret of Fire, and who also amuse I, Thor Sommerseth, by wearing suits and bow-ties and riding on bicycles and playing tambourines while wearing “hippy” wigs. I have never been amused in such a fashion by any Time Warner Cable employee!
May Hod, the son of Odin who accidentally killed his own brother, flail you in your most buttery and vulnerable parts while chasing you through Niðavellir, the underground realm of the dwarves, and may any wise monkeys wearing Fez’s you encounter there fling poo at you!!! And when your hubris impels you to be CAST from your place of employment and work as a waiter and/or waitress, may Izzy Adelbaum, the evil patriarch of my maternal ancestors, leave you a $1.25 tip on a $25 dollar tab, as I saw him do recently at the Eat In Time Diner in Uniondale, Long Island.
For the love of Höðr, God of Winter, I am, Thor Sommerseth