That's it, I'm pissed!

I bought a laptop from Dell last summer. Actually, I bought 3 laptops from Dell last summer.

The first one was delivered to the wrong address, and the bitch there stole it. DHL is obviously hiring fucking idiots - yeah, 200 East My Street looks just fucking like 526 East My Street. Stevie Tart, the bitch who stole it, told me to my face, "Oh, yeah, someone already came by, said they were you and took it," when I went to pick it up from her. I told DHL they owed me a laptop and was told to take it up with Dell. I went to the cop shack to report a stolen laptop and was told, "Oh, the guy you need to talk to is out of town right now, but he'll give you a call when he gets back." Well, that's been six & a half months now and no fucking call. Guess it's not important enough for them to give a fuck.

The second one, I called Dell, told them the first one had been mis-delivered and to go ahead and make me a new one. Now, I didn't figure this would take long, since it'd taken them six days from the time I ordered the first one to the time the bitch up the street stole it. After three fucking weeks I found out they'd fucking canceled it without bothering to tell me.

The third one, finally, after another three weeks, showed up. Cue happy dance.

Now, the thing that's really got me pissed. I make my payments online, and when I was online making the latest payment, I saw that they'd bumped my credit limit by $500.00. "Cool," thought I, "now I can order some stuff I can really use." So I drew up a short shopping list & sent it off, only to be told, "You can't do that, you don't have that much in your credit limit."

What the fuck? Upon checking my credit limit, I find that they did, indeed, bump my credit limit by $500 - from $1500 to $2000. I also see that I currently owe $1412.79. So I should have $587.21, right? Wrong! I have $116.49 available to me. There's $470.72 off in fucking limbo or something.

And now for the capper: I emailed Dell, asking what was up and where this missing $470.72 was. Today, just for giggles, I checked my account again, and they've found a home for that missing $470.72: they tacked it onto my current balance! That's right, in 24 hours, without making a single successful purchase (as confirmed by my account page on Dell), my current balance has gone from $1412.79 to $1883.51.

That's why I'm pissed. These fuckers are trying to jerk me around for almost $500, and I'm not going to fucking take it. If they don't get this straightened out, I'm going to do my level best to return the laptop and get back the $1883.51 they claim I owe. While I'm at it, I'll see if I can get back some or all of the $300 or so in payments I've made to date. If they can't get their shit straightened out, this'll be the last piece of shit I buy from these cocksuckers.

I'm not picky, but...

Warning: language in this post may be (probably is) offensive to some. Do not read if you're easily offended.

This has been bugging me for a while.

How many times have you heard someone say (or seen in print) something like this:

"I'm not a racist, but..."

"I'm not sexist, but..."

"I don't hate gays, but..."

followed by something racist, sexist, anti-gay, or directly opposite whatever it was they opened with?

My classic example, on the Straight Dope message board a few years ago: a guy mentioned that he (a white guy) was dating a black girl, and they were getting pretty serious about it. His uncle felt the need to draw him to the side and say, "I'm not a racist, but you know people are going to have problems seeing the two of you together."

I posted that anyone who says, "I'm not a racist, but..." is a racist. I got a lot of flack over that, accusations of "using a wide brush" and the like. After a few weeks, I changed my stance on the matter, but after much thought on it, I feel now that I was wrong to make that change. I have never heard anyone ever start a statement with "I'm not a <insert bigot sub-type here>, but..." and not promptly follow it with something blatantly bigotted.

Let's finish those statements above.

"I'm not a racist, but those damn niggers don't know their place."

"I'm not sexist, but women have no business being out of the house."

"I don't hate gays, but we'd be better off if every one of the bastards were dead."

Maybe it's just me, but those three statements sound awfully racist, sexist and anti-gay. If you're going to be a bigot, you should at least have the balls to admit you're a bigot. But very few bigots have the balls to be honest. So, I guess cowardice is the companion to bigotry.

And have you ever read anything by racist/sexist/whateverist bigots? You can't tell who they're really more in awe of. For instance, white supremist racists. They'll go on and on about how the whites are God's Own True Chosen Master Race^TM, but then they'll go on about how the Jooz, the Blackz or the Mud People are running the world. Hey, Binky! If you're the master race, why aren't you running the show? If they're running everything, sounds like they're the master race.

Fastest way to piss off a white-supremist racist? Accuse them of being a black-supremist or a jewish-supremist. After all, if they're claiming the blacks/jews/whatevers are in charge, they must think the blacks/jews/whatevers are the master race.

Oh, and in regard to the title, I guess I am picky.