My Daughter Has No Arms

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Last night we had 2 sleepovers occurring simultaneously, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to catch up on a show that I’ve quickly come to love: Ozzy and Jack’s World Detour found on the History Channel. I’ve always loved watching Ozzy, 50% incoherent, cursing his way through life. It’s like Betty White, but male, stoned and British. You know what? Forget that comparison, they have nothing in common except that they are human.

As usual, I could not get the ON DEMAND function to work. I was about to lose it as this would be my 2nd phone call of the night to Time Warner. When the customer service rep answered the phone, I immediately picked up on his accent and was instantly frustrated as I was not in the mood to ask him to repeat himself several times.

“This is the 2nd time I have had to call you guys tonight & the third time in a week. I am completely over it! Please know my frustration is not with you. My frustration is with the stupid engineers or the bigwigs of Time Warner who can’t seem to get our internet and cable to work consistently! All I want is to watch Ozzy Osbourne and his son Jack on the History Channel and CAN’T!”

“I am sarry about that maum,” he said in an accent I was trying to figure out was from Asia or India. “You are my 27th call tonight about this same issue. It would be my pleasure to resolve this for you.”

I rolled my eyes at this because I was guessing I would be going through the same damn thing of rebooting my box.

“27!” I belted out. “Aren’t you about to quit?”

He giggled like a bashful child. I had visions that my C.S.R was none other than Tattoo from Fantasy Island. His laughing egged me on.

“I bet your about to jump off a bridge at this point,” I said.

Candidly he responded back. Obviously he was at his breaking point.

“I look for another job soon. I question why I’m here.”

“Yeah, totally!” I said in agreement as if Tattoo could just get on monster.com and look for another dead end job or find a recruiter.

“But then I think of my daughter and have to stay for her.”

“Yeah, I totally get that. My last job was a nightmare and every time I wanted to quit, I just thought of my sons and the cost of soccer.”

“My daughter has no arms.” He said as if he had just let me know I’m eligible for a discounted upgrade.

‘Come again?’ 

“Whaaaaat….” Is all I could get out. If words could have looks, my what would have looked like a deer in the headlights. I was waiting for us to recover this conversation and for him to yell “JK!” into the phone and we would just laugh at his inappropriate joke.

That redemption never came, in fact it got worse.

“Yes, it is true. She has no arms. She is 3 and I am all she has.”

I went into action mode as I always do when a crisis hits. The first thing out of my mouth was, “where are you?” Like I was going to pick him & his daughter up and take them to the prosthetic center that I had no idea was located.

“The Philippines maum.”

“Do you have health insurance?”

Why I asked this, I will never know.

“No maum I do not. It is not offered nationally.”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. Does Time Warner offer health insurance?” I was now not only livid that my show wasn’t coming on but that the crooks of T.W. was not offering poor Tattoo and his daughter health insurance. I was prepared to hit all forms of social media and rip them a new asshole till he dropped this additional bomb on me and I forgot about this plan.

“Her mother left us. Her mother said she is not human. We fought and fought but in the end, she left.”

I had no idea what to do. As a human, you want to help but when you are on a completely different continent, broke but hardly broke by the world’s standards you have nothing left to offer but well wishes, prayers and hope.

“I will pray for you,” I said. “Look, if somehow I become rich, I am going to find you and your daughter and hook you up. Ok?” I said, questioning what I had just said. Surely they can look back on my calls, see who the C.S.R was that took my call on this particular night and get me in touch with this specific person. Right?

There was no segue into letting Tattoo know my cable box had rebooted and I pretty much sounded like an ass hole when I announced, “well thank you for all of your help. I can watch my Ozzy and Jack now. Thank you so much and I hope you get a better job or win the lottery.”

How did I handle that? How would you guys of handled it? I mean, you call to get your cable fixed and just a small slice of someone’s nightmare is placed before you and you helpless and it completely blows.

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