Thank you for calling Hell™ how can I direct your call?

So I have to return the old power supply.
Right. This should be easy: I should have gotten return shipping labels or been told when UPS/Fedex/DHL was coming by to pick up. Because none of these things happened, I decide to call Dell.
SHOULD be simple, yes?
Well, the first person I called got me transferred via VOIP to somewhere that sounded like Mars, (that's the fourth planet, not MARZ; MARZ would probably have been more helpful, I expect, at least I would have gotten to talk to Mariluiz) to some guy that took all of my information and put me on hold forever only to tell me he couldn't help me.
So he decides to transfer me. Of course, coming back to earth I got cut off. I decide, 'fine, I'll email'.
An hour later I get back a form email that said absolutely nothing helpful and gave me a reference number. So I call again and get a third person, who can't understand the reference number and claims it's a tracking number (which it's not; it was an alphanumeric string - DHL and Fedex both use numeric strings and UPS alphanumeric tracking numbers begin with 1 and have much fewer letters in them than this) and that she can't help me either and that I need to call small business customer support. Fine. So I do.
And find out they closed twenty minutes ago.
Argh! Cut to this morning. So I call small business support, go through half a million options (some of which I swear I heard before on previous menus earlier in the stack) and finally get a person, also on Mars. I explain. He tells me (after putting me once again on hold) that I've got a pickup either today or tomorrow, and also the wrong number (again). He gives me the correct number, assures me that I'll have a pickup either tomorrow or Monday, and then I hang up.
Gord. The next computer I'm getting is going to be HP. I never had this much problem with them. All this for a freaking sticky piece of paper that goes on a box. I'd eat the expense, but I don't even know where to send it, and if I called and asked I'd have to find the right department. Which is probably on Mars.

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On a better note, my hair dye came today. I'm not dyeing yet though, I want to get it cut first.

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And I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because Chris is in the interview RIGHT NOW, I think. Of course, that makes it difficult to type, but oh well. :-D

Culture Shock

(Inspired by the first entry in takaal's new prompt community, photo_prompts ...)

Anthony was prepared for different. It was an assignment offworld. It was supposed to be different. That was the whole point of 'offworld.' He'd packed up his computer and his palmtop and his clothes and gotten stuck with more needles than he'd had in his life so far to prevent diseases he couldn't even pronounce, had spent half his trip out with his head bent over a Rigellian-to-English dictionary, looking up to see the majesty of stars passing by at speeds he didn't have names for.
Different was good. New adventuring slapped a balm on the pain he felt whenever he looked at Emily's picture, dulled the fresh storm of agony at the thought of weeks alone where he barely spoke the language and didn't know a soul. He had no internal concept of the real, yawning distance between Tokyo-Yokohama and Rigel II, and that was in some ways a blessing. It actually numbed his heart, the topical anaesthetic of meaningless numbers.
At least he thought he was prepared for different. But when the commuter shuttle-ship from Rigel Prime to Rigel II descended through the atmosphere at the tail end of his third day out, he peered out of his smudged window and gasped.
The sunset.
He had no idea why he'd expected sunsets to be universally the same. It really didn't make sense. But sunsets were one of those things that were just ... there, the stuff of romantic songs and impressionist paintings, walks along the beach with your girlfriend and summer evenings with your friends in the park.
And damn it, they were not supposed to be green.
The clouds shimmered with an alien, unnatural glow, a hot ball of radium at their center spilling itself over the ground.
"Jesus Christ." he whispered, rubbing his eyes as the shuttle dropped onto the runway of the main spaceport on the planet now known as 'home.' "Jesus fucking Christ."