I’m not sure if this true tale from what I laughingly call my life qualifies as another installment of the “Sher Curse” saga. There were no bats flying around my house, no trees crashing on my car or abode, no mad scientist and no nutty neighbor “channeling” unsolicited advice from “the other side” etc. ad nauseum (some of you know me in what I laughingly call “my life” know that I’m not kidding about anything I just mentioned).

But it is definitely from the “I Couldn’t Make This Sh*t Up!” files. What’s it about? Oh, that oddly misnamed thing called - ta da – CUSTOMER SERVICE.

However, this time the actual human customer service people in my tale were nice and seemed competent, if confused and bemused by my quandary. You see, somehow, I fell into a bizarre dimension where rogue AI customer service robots have run amok – creating a new way to experience a mega time suck.

On to the specifics.

I ordered one – let me repeat, O N E! – HP black ink thing from Amazon for a printer. It arrived. The next day another one arrived.

I hurriedly checked my account. Apparently, I was only charged for one but I wanted to make sure so I dug out the actual Amazon customer service phone number (which is not easy to find on the website anymore so I have it stashed away if anyone needs it).

I called. And, of course, I first talked to a robot.

“Just talk to me like I’m a person,” it said. “I can probably help.” It couldn’t. Nothing worked.

“Duplicate order,” I said. “Wrong order,” I tried. The robot insisted I wanted to place an order and blithered on about other things that had nothing to do with the words I said, much less my problem.

I was about to yell “DO YOU HAVE HORNETS FOR BRAINS!” but I controlled myself, kind of, and repeated “customer service” over and over and over, which was apparently too much for the robot’s poorly programmed brain. I was placed on hold and then – voila!!! - I was finally talking to a real human (I think) and finished explaining in detail my problem when, of course, the call dropped from the Amazon end.

Yep. I had to go through the whole “talk to the robot voice thing” again. I finally reached a nice human woman who took an inordinately long time to “check” my account and actually said she’d make sure I wasn’t charged for the extra ink cartridge. But I had to return it via UPS.

I gave the Amazon lady a good review but added a note that I didn’t think, after this wasted time, I should have to deal with returning the ink cartridge. I didn’t want something I didn’t pay for but maybe they could arrange a pickup.

I soon had a nice note from Amazon saying just keep the ink cartridge and they apologized for the time suck. (OkokokOK, they didn’t actually say “time suck.”)

End of this saga? Nope.

The next morning, bright and early, another unordered ink cartridge arrived on my porch. And another came in the mail… and another. A UPS truck arrived. I ran downstairs and found one stick-on return label sticking out from under the doormat. Huh? The driver was gone and I had been told NOT to return the ink cartridge …

I didn’t have the energy to call Amazon to let them know I am still inexplicably attracting HP ink cartridges I DID NOT ORDER! Nope, no time for that because I was about to fall into another inexplicable time suck tunnel.

You see, I had an email thanking me from a certain ginormous three letter internet and phone provider (I’ll call them “BS&S,” because I don’t want to get any human customer service person in trouble over this craziness). The missive said thanks for my order and to click here to see the charges.

Whaaat?

I had NOT ORDERED anything and I wasn’t clicking on anything. I checked out the phone number on the email and it was legit so, yes, I called customer service at BS&S.

After the de rigueur interminable wait on hold, I talked to a very nice young man. I explained I had not ordered anything although an email claimed I had. He checked my BS&S account and told me I hadn’t ordered anything.

Uh. Yes, I knew that.

However, he said there were some promotions and an upgrade to my phone account that he could offer me that would save me a few bucks a month. “I really don’t want to deal with somebody coming to the house.. I’m busy with work…. what does this involve?” I asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” the man said. “We do it at our end. You won’t notice anything but a lower bill."

Again, I reiterated I didn’t have time to deal with a technician coming out and I was told absolutely no technician was needed. OK. Great. I thanked him, hung up and got a text IMMEDIATELY on my phone from BS&S saying a technician would be at my house Friday between 8 and 10 a.m. HUH? I called back. Got the unhelpful robot voice. Put on hold. Got through to a woman and went through the saga above… She, too, pulled up my account and said, “There’s no reason any technician needs to go to your house. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

”Uh. Me either, “I said. “That’s why I called you.”

More time on hold while she looked through my account and noted the changes made.. everything was fine, she assured me. But then she saw some out-of-place something (seriously, the only explanation she had) which , she said, shouldn’t be there - instructions about a technician coming out. Only there was no reason for that. A tech person should NOT be coming out and she couldn’t figure out how to remove that from the order.

While I waited in the time suck tunnel of crappy luck, she cancelled everything and redid the order.

“There,” she said, “No technician is needed and nobody will come.”

“Great! Thanks, “I answered and hung up.

But… what was that? I looked at my phone. A text. From BS&S.

Was it to let me know the order was processed? Was it thanks for being a good customer? Nope.

It said (verbatim): “We confirm that your appointment is now today. Our tech is scheduled to arrive between 11AM – 1 PM. Bye for now, BS&S.” I gave up calling back and just decided I was going to get back to work and ignore any knock at the door from the not-supposed-to-come-but-scheduled tech person. But there was no knock at the door.

I’m glad but I hope he (or she) didn’t trip over any more unwanted bags of mystery HP printer cartridges on my porch.