Meet “all”

You know how they say nurses have seen it all?

Well, I think customer service reps have heard it all.

And I’m pretty sure I can count myself in both groups of “all.”

With the nurses, simply because I’ve had children. And with the customer service reps, it’s because I have no military experience.

It’ll make sense in a minute.

When you call Apple for the first time about a product, they invariably ask you for the serial number. Which would be fine, except that Apple’s serial numbers are riddled with letters.

This is why they record calls “for quality control.” To laugh at them later.

My most recent conversation with an Apple rep went something like this:

“Thank you for calling Apple, my name is Chuck, what product do you need help with today?”

“My iPhone.”

“Ok, give me your Apple ID and I’ll pull up your file.”

This much I could handle.

“Now please read me your phone’s serial number.”

“OK. It’s (and this is made-up, people. Don’t go trying to register this thing anywhere) 1234, L as in … um, ‘lesbian,” 56, D as in, um … ‘drunk,” 78910 J as in, oh, hell, what–oh, yeah, J as in ‘Jesus,’” I could hear Chuck trying to repress his laughter, and it only made me more flummoxed.

“Ok, so then after J, there’s B as in um, that word for a woman that rhymes with ‘witch?’” I took it from Chuck’s gasping for air that he got it. “Then we’ve got S, as in ‘SNAFU,’ like me attempting to read you this damn thing, and F, as in ‘Fu…’ um, you know, the F word.”

“Ok, that would be F as in ‘Foxtrot?’” Chuck broke in.

“Yes,” I said. “Foxtrot. Totally would have been next on my list.”

“Uh-huh. You wanna read me the rest?”

“G as in–”

“Golf,” Chuck said.

“I was gonna say ‘Goiter,’ but ok, ‘Golf works. Then T as in–”

“Tango.”

“You’ve really got a thing for ballroom dancing, huh?”

“No, I have a cheat sheet.”

“It’s a good thing! ‘Tango’ beats the hell out of my word, which probably would have been ‘Torrid.’”

 It ain’t easy being blonde

Later, after Mark got home, I told him the story. “So basically, you have to add Apple to the long list of places you can’t call again,” he said.

“It’s not a long list. I don’t do that much embarrassing stuff.”

“How about the time that you called that restaurant to recommend they drug test their employees?”

“Oh. Well, that was completely justified. I don’t remember why, but it was.”

“They inverted your French onion soup.”

“Right! What kind of idiot does that? Cheese on the bottom? Then bread, then soup? You’d have to be high.”

“Which is what you told the manager, if I recall correctly.”

“This was different. Tell me you’d know the whole alphabet in military-type terms.”

 Two lawyers try to figure out the military radio system…

“Of course I would.” Mark put on his smug face.

“A–Alpha

B–Bravo

C–” he faltered.

“You see!” I smacked him on the shoulder. “Tell me you wouldn’t have said ‘cupcake.’ Oh, God, I think there was a ‘C’ in my serial number and I said ‘colon.’”

Mark raised an eyebrow.

“Moving on, D–Dog, obviously,” he said.

“Unless you wanted to use ‘drunk,’ ‘dick,’ or ‘drumstick.’ Or ‘disco-stick.’ Because Lady GaGa has totally contributed that much to our lexicon.”

“E–Easy.”

“No, it’s not! You try thinking of something like ‘esophagus’ on the spot.”

“Honey, ‘Easy.’ Like Easy Company?”

I felt very … female.

“F–Fox.”

“No! No! It’s not ‘fox!’ It’s not ‘fuck,’ either. It’s ‘foxtrot.’ So you know ‘W’ has to be ‘waltz.’”

“G–Golf.

H–umm …. Hero.

I–Island.

J–Joker.

K–Kangaroo.”

“No. No way is it ‘kangaroo.’ ‘Klingon’ would be much better.”

He ignored me. “L–Lazy.

M–Mountain.

N–Noodle.

O–Opossum.”

“That might explain a lot of accidental bombings.”

Mark continued. “P–Possum.”

“Like I was saying ….”

“Q–Q-tip.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“R–Radio.”

“Don’t you think that word’s already taken? For something kind of important?”

“S–Snake.

T–Tango.”

“This is ridiculous. Are people supposed to listen to our radio traffic and think the guys are all hanging out dancing the foxtrot and the tango?”

“U–Uniform.

V–Valley.

W–Whiskey.”

“No, wait a minute. If we know we have tango and foxtrot, why isn’t ‘W’ for ‘waltz?’ What happened to consistency?”

“I don’t know, but ‘W’ is definitely ‘whiskey.’”

“X–x-ray.

Y–Yankee.

Z–Zulu.”

“Do you want to look it up and see how wrong we were, or make up our own more ridiculous version to use with customer service people?”

Mark raised an eyebrow again.

“Ok, you look it up, and I’ll make one up.”

Marital compromise at its finest, folks.