Dear Verizon, You're Killing Me

A couple of weeks ago I took my family on vacation to Washington, D.C. It was a great time marred only slightly by a tragic occurrence: On our last day there, my 13-year-old daughter left her cell phone in a cab outside the hotel.

I say "tragic" because, despite owning the phone for two short weeks, my daughter already was deep in the throes of addiction. Naturally it's all about the texting. (In fact, I'm not sure why we just don't recategorize cell phones for people under age 25 or so as "texting machines," which really is what they are.)

So addicted is my daughter that she had the phone in her pocket even though its battery power had run out (she forgot the charger and we hadn't used our vehicle in three days). That was her second-biggest mistake of the trip, exceeded only by her "fashion over comfort" decision to wear new flats as we covered mile after mile on foot in our nation's capital. By our final day she was limping like a prisoner on a forced march. Hence the cab ride.

Then Verizon came to the rescue, or so it cruelly seemed. A week ago Sunday (eight days ago) I got a call on my cell phone from an unfamiliar number. I didn't answer, but looked it up online and discovered it was from a Verizon service center in the D.C. area. I called back and learned some good news: The cab driver who let us off at the hotel had found my daughter's cell phone and dropped it off at a local Verizon store, despite the fact that lemonade I didn't know was in the folded-up stroller I was carrying had spilled onto the floor of his vehicle behind the passenger seat.

I had been all set to put our $5 monthly insurance to good use and replace my daughter's phone. (I was happier about the insurance before I learned there was a $50 deductible, which Verizon always fails to mention when you're asked if you want their coverage for replacing lost, stolen or damaged cell phones. Sorry, if there's a deductible, you tell people.) But now the good people at Verizon were offering to put my daughter's recovered cell phone in the mail on Monday.

That was seven days and 432 times I've been asked, "Dad, when will I get my cell phone?" ago. Over the weekend I called the same number from which I got the initial good news to find out if the phone had been mailed. The nice woman I talked to had no idea. She couldn't even tell me which Verizon store had the phone. I'm giving it two more days (and about 47 of the same, insanity-inducing question) before swallowing the $50 deductible.

There are three lessons here:

1) Get as much information as you can when dealing with a service center, just in case the follow-through is lacking.
2) Check the seat of the cab before the driver pulls away, every time. I always do when traveling on my own, but in this case I knew I had my cell phone and wallet on me. So what could possibly have been in the cab?
3) Always wear comfortable shoes on vacation. If my daughter wasn't in such agony, she could have lost her phone on the Metro instead and I could have saved $12.

I have to wrap this up. I see my daughter's calling me from our home phone. I wonder what she wants.