I did. Success went right straight to my head; I was drunk on power and competence. It was both life enhancing and unfamiliar. You see, I’ve tilted at more than my share of windmills, billions of them, I’d just never won before.
I’d get a good head of steam going over some wrong or other, saddle up my high horse, and ride headlong into battle against big, powerful forces: the cable company, the government, winter, anything I consider domineering. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, I can’t help it. As a result, I’ve wasted a huge chunk of my life tilting at windmills. I tilt, they squash, I slink away. Then, bang, I run into another unfairness and the pattern starts all over again. Tilt, kabong, slink; tilt, kabong, slink — the story of my life.
It’s a hobby, I guess.
My clash with Adobe, the software tyrants, was no different. I’d decided to field test InDesign, their page layout program, on a trial basis. I was offered three choices:
→a 12-month single application subscription for $239.88/yr. — prepaid
→a 12-month single application subscription for $20.99/yr. — paid monthly
→a single application plan for 31.49 per month
I went with the one-month option; commitments make me anxious. Long story short, they insisted it was an 
annual subscription. So I saddled up and I tilted pell-mell, I tilted like a crazy person, bobbing and weaving and jabbing. And, get this, I won. It was so, so absolutely wonderful to finally emerge as a victor. I felt like Super Girl and Wonder Woman rolled into one.
So, giddy with power and nursing a long-simmering grievance against Verizon and their deceptive practices, I headed right back into battle. Spoiler alert: I lost and I lost big, bridges were burned. The flames lit up the sky for miles, they could be seen from space. In a towering huff, I canceled my account and now I have to pony up a fat wad of money I don’t have for my 3-month old iPhone. But I showed them. I showed them all the way to the poor house.
This feeling, this sense of failure and regret, is one I’m well-acquainted with. Oy, I’ll never learn.
copyright © 2019 the whirly girl
the whirly girl 
8 responses to “: I got greedy :”
By the sound of it, you have the consolation of a moral victory – that makes you a hero in my book!
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Thank you❣️ I like hero better than crackpot and crackpot better than self-destructive menace. Those were also suggestions 🤦🏻♀️
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There really is no way to beat these guys no matter what their name is. Here we have Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, numerous no-name brands, etc. They are all just highway robbers. One is as bad as another. The only difference is our prices are unbelievably higher here in Canada. It’s embarrassing the amount of money we pay.
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Higher? Oy⁉️ Am I wrong or is this a short-sighted business plan? I mean, who will they shake down after they’ve wrung us all dry?
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The telecoms (and other large companies) have shell games they play with their customers over the phone. I used to dread the yearly call to ATT for home internet. Now we have Google Fiber: the price is always the same, they send monthly emails and you never have to call. Of course ATT and the others could do this too but they are oligopolies who insist on squeezing every bit of extra money out of their customers.
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I quit AT&T for their heavy-handed thievery and signed up with Verizon. It was a short trip from the frying pan to the fire. The one lesson I’ve learned is: insist on an itemized bill. Don’t fall for the paperless nonsense — it’s a license to steal.
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I like the frying pan-fire analogy. Even their written bills are a quagmire and intentionally confusing. The same thing goes for a ATT hotspot I have. When you try to figure out in your website account how much money you need to pay and when, the language is ambiguous.
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You’re right, they’re a joke 😆 But they are in writing, which makes me feel better even though I can’t understand a word 🤦🏻♀️
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