Christmas was fine, New Year’s was fine, good cheer all around and so forth. But I’m not here to talk about good cheer – I’m here to talk about confrontations with crazy people! Because what’s funnier: exchanging tokens of affection and spending quality time with family (yawn!) or being chased down the street by a mentally unstable seventeen-stone hippie? I think the answer is obvious.
So we’ve been staying at this holiday flat in Wales, on and off: we were there for three weeks in December, and we were supposed to be there for the second two weeks of January. When we first arrived, the slightly dotty-seeming landlady told us that the Sky TV service wasn’t working, but should be fixed soon. This was a bit of a pain, as we had nothing to do in the evenings except watch TV, and also, satellite TV had been advertised as included on the flat’s website. We waited several days and left a note, to which we got no response; and when we checked out before Christmas there was still no Sky. We were moderately annoyed at this point but didn’t want to bother kicking up a fuss.
When we checked back in this past Monday, we asked the landlady if the Sky had been fixed. She said that someone had been round that morning and that everything should be working fine. That evening when we tried to watch telly, quel surprise! The Sky still wasn’t working. (Looking back at this paragraph, without the capitalisation it would read very strangely indeed.) This time the error message on the screen read, “Viewing card not authorised. Please contact broadcaster.”
I hate raising a fuss about anything (I’ll eat practically inedible food in a restaurant rather than complain, not because I’m easygoing but because I’m pathologically afraid of confrontation, despite my punk-rock history of getting into fights with junkies on public transport), but I took the card with me and knocked on the landlady’s door. A cacophony of barking dogs and screaming kids erupted inside the house and the landlady (let’s just call her Crazy Hippie) came to the door looking frazzled and impatient.
“I’m really sorry to bother you,” I said, “but apparently this viewing card hasn’t been authorised – the Sky TV still isn’t working.”
CH looked annoyed. “I did all that this morning.”
I could tell she wasn’t exactly effusing with a desire to enhance my holiday experience, but goddammit, I was missing The Dog Whisperer! I soldiered on. “Well, I’m not sure what happened, but there’s a message on the TV saying the card needs to be authorised.”
My blinding logic was making no inroads. “I called up and authorised it this morning,” she insisted.
Well, stupid me! I’ll just go tell that to the satellite dish and I’m sure all this will be resolved. “Uh, well, it really isn’t working,” I said.
CH looked exasperated. “OK, I’ll check to see if mine is working, then I’ll come up and see you.”
So I returned to the flat, where there was no telly, and sat down on the sofa with SiC. We hadn’t bought our supper yet, so we had nothing to do but wait. After ten minutes passed with nary a peep from CH, SiC, in his enterprising way, decided to call Sky himself. He’s uncannily good at charming his way with customer service drones. (He’s sort of like the Call Centre Whisperer.) Anyway, long story short (you wish), apparently CH had mixed up the viewing cards and inserted the wrong card in our machine. The friendly Sky lady reset the card and assured us that the service would resume during the evening.
Clever husband! We left the flat to go get some supper, and knocked on CH’s door to let her know everything was fine, thinking she would be relieved.
Uh…apparently not so much. After another round of frenzied barking (presumably by the dogs; in retrospect I’m not so sure), CH opened the door looking more annoyed than ever and holding the phone to her ear.
“Oh, sorry,” said SiC. “We just wanted to let you know that everything is sorted with Sky. We rang them up and it’s fixed.”
We smiled and turned to walk away, when CH said, “Oh, thanks a lot,” and slammed the door in our faces. Rather emphatically. SiC and I sort of stood there stupidly, like did that just actually happen? and after a few seconds of stunned silence, SiC knocked on the door again.
CH answered the door again, looking if possible even more annoyed, and said, “Look, I’m sorry, but I asked you to leave it with me.” Not exactly grovelling in apology, as I would have thought the situation dictated.
SiC gave her the “What the hell, we were doing you a favour, I’ve been working all day and I really don’t need this kind of crap” speech, quite understandably in the circumstances, at which point CH just flipped her lid completely and started shouting at us. We gave up and tried to walk away, and she followed us into the street screaming, “Come back here and listen to me, you thoughtless people!” until we rounded the corner some distance away. Dude: fucking what?!?
So. We went into the pub across the street (naturally), where some of the patrons had heard the slam (yes, she slammed the door that hard) and seen the ensuing brouhaha (don’t you love that word?). And proving once again that village pubs are awesome, nearly every single punter in the place came up with some story about what a psycho this woman is.
To wit: she’s a drunk. (One of the ladies in the pub used to clean her house, and told sordid tales of empty bottles in the bedroom.) She’s completely minted from her second marriage and owns numerous properties. Her third (I think) husband recently left her for a younger woman. (Or maybe just a saner one.) And get this: years ago, she was hit by lightning while sitting at her desk in an office building in London. (“Wow – even God failed,” said SiC.) She was in a coma and had to learn to walk and talk all over again. And to top it all off, her mother recently died. So at this point I am feeling bad for this very unlucky woman, but still. You don’t scream at people in the street when they fix your satellite TV.
We went back to the flat with some trepidation, and sure enough, five minutes after we got back, CH rang the bell. SiC tried to shoo her away, but she insisted that she’d come to apologise; of course she immediately descended right back into crazy ranting, informing us very shrilly that she’d just lost her mother and so on and so forth. She shoved a letter into SiC’s hand and huffed off. To cap the evening off properly, it turned out that Sky wasn’t fixed at all and we were still stuck with the bare hillbilly minimum of channels all night. Oh the humanity.
I had assumed that the letter would contain some form of apology, but again, not so much. You can glean its basic gist from the response we delivered to her after we very quickly got the HELL out of there the next morning:
Dear CH,
This is in response to the letter I received from you yesterday evening, 9 January 2008, and also in response to your behaviour with regard to the Sky TV service in the Coach House holiday flat.
Your letter raises a few points which I would like to address.
Firstly I would like to say that we were sorry to hear about your recent loss, and I thank you for the initial apology contained within your letter.
However, the rest of the letter contains quite a few inaccuracies.
First of all: “I did ask you to leave the problem of the Sky box with me to resolve. I assured you that I would deal with the problem promptly which I attempted to do.”
You did not ask us to leave the problem with you. When my wife informed you yesterday evening that the Sky viewing card had not been activated, you told her specifically that you would check to see if your own service was working and then come see us. We waited for over ten minutes and then decided to call Sky and see if we could resolve the problem ourselves. We assumed this would be helpful to you.
In addition, you did not at any point assure us that you would deal with the problem promptly. In fact, Sky TV had not been in operation since we checked in for our first week’s stay on 3 December 2007. You apologised for the lack of service and told us then that the Sky service would be fixed, but did not give us a date or any assurance that this would happen quickly. After about three days we left you a note asking when the Sky service would be fixed, to which we received no response. Keeping in mind that the events in question happened on January 9, this means that the Sky service was not working for over a month.
“I am pleased that you have an operational Sky box now. I am mystified as to how you were able to achieve this given the security questions which are supposed to be asked and which were asked of myself.”
As of late last night, the Sky box is still not operational and still recieves only standard TV channels. What we did manage to resolve with Sky was the fact that the viewing card was not properly activated. According to Sky, the card had been mixed up with another card and inserted into the wrong machine, presumably by you. I explained to Sky that we were tenants staying in a holiday flat and gave them your address as the account holder. They did not ask me any security questions as I told them quite clearly that I myself was not the account holder.
“The net result of your contacting Sky direct is that my own box has been disabled with them as a possible fraud issue. This is why I asked you to leave the matter with me.”
Again, you never specifically asked us not to attempt to resolve the problem ourselves, and given the duration of the problem, it is not surprising we chose to contact Sky. We never misled Sky, and if they have in fact disabled your box I suggest you take up the matter with Sky as this is obviously an error on their part.
“To also draw to your attention that when Company Name made the booking at the Coach House, satellite TV was not installed and is as such a bonus for your stay.”
The enclosed web pages as well as the enclosed pamphlet all clearly list Sky/satellite television as a feature of the Coach House flat. At no point were we informed that we would not receive the service as indicated in your promotional materials.
“I must also say that being shouted at and verbally abused by you both on my front door step is not behaviour which I find appropriate or acceptable.”
This is very misleading. When we knocked on your door yesterday evening to inform you that we had resolved the problem with the viewing card, you said, and I quote, “Thanks a lot” (emphasis yours), and then slammed the door in our faces. We did knock on the door again to find out what the problem was, and naturally did express displeasure at your very shocking action. However, we did not raise our voices to you at this time despite your continuing rudeness, and when we tried to leave, you followed us down the street insisting that we “come back here”. The entire altercation was witnessed by patrons at the pub across the street, so please do not accuse us of verbally abusing you or of instigating this conflict in any way, as this is blatantly false.
As a result of your slamming the door in our faces when we informed you that we had spoken to Sky ourselves (which we assumed you would be grateful for) and your subsequent rudeness and ridiculous accusations, and as a result of the continuing lack of Sky television service which is clearly advertised on your promotional materials, I am checking out as of today and hereby request a full refund for the rest of the reservation, booked until 19 January, in the amount of £318.00. Please make this payable to Company Name and deliver it to 46 High Street, WelshTown.
Yours sincerely,
SiC
(Yep, I totally wrote that. I think I have a long and glorious future of writing huffy letters to the editor.)
We’ll see whether we get the money back – I have my doubts as she has since tried to accost us on the street (we had to duck into a doorway to avoid her). Anyway, it’s a lot of drama over some fucking satellite TV, but GODDAMMIT I NEED TO WATCH THE DOG WHISPERER. A person deserves that much.