Story of the Day 7/ 9/ 2014

This is a Story of the Day that is really part of what is starting to feel like a never-ending-saga.

My mother-in-law, my husband's mother, died 3 weeks ago.

That is not the saga, it is part of the background to the saga.

On Sunday evening, she complimented her husband ( my father-in-law) on the meatloaf he had made.
On Monday,she awoke in pain.
After hours in the emergency room, many hours,
they performed surgery.
My husband got on a very early flight on Tuesday and made it to the hospital, Tuesday morning.
He and his father sat with his mother , who was sedated, but had survived the surgery.
Late that evening, my husband went back to his hotel room. And just around midnight, she died.

Now, my in-laws were not ( understatement of the year) outgoing.
They had no friends,at least not in years.
My father-in-law is friendly with a couple of people who live in other apartments in the building, but he doesn't know their names, has never been in their apartments nor have they been in his.
He does, however, say a few words to them in the laundry room or the elevator.

My in-laws had also not been on speaking terms with any relatives in the New York area in over 9 years;
and if you don't count their daughter, who died last October, then you can refigured that number
to over 3 decades.
They did not belong to a synagogue or anything else.
So, after the funeral, graveside with 3 people,four, if you count the rabbi,
my husband decided that he and his fathers should come back here to sit shiva.
And his father should also move here , to Indiana.

Even his father agreed.

This is slightly....startling,
since my husband Larry, had tried for a few years to get them to consider moving here.
But when they had one another, that wasn't quite as isolating as it was for his father to be out there all alone.
So, on Thursday, the day after the funeral, they flew here.

That was almost 3 weeks ago.

For my father-in-law, one of the things that he has missed the most while living with us is getting a daily newspaper.

That is where our saga begins.

You see, after Sarah went off to college, last fall, we stopped our newspaper subscription.
We had been getting the daily paper ever since, in 5th grade, Sarah became interested in reading the sports section.

That might seem like an expensive way to feed a child's interest, but, as my mother is wont to say,
"buying the kids something that they will read is cheaper than tutoring."

In an attempt to staunch the flow of blood- I mean money, now that all three of our children were in college-
we stopped the subscription, right after Sarah left for college.
Instead, larry and I would read our news on-line.
He preferring The New York Times, and I preferring The Washington Post.

But, Larry's father is of a different generation and reading on-line doesn't' fit well with his morning cup of coffee.
So, I went on-line and ordered a subscription for daily delivery of the Indianapolis Star.

The Indianapolis Star is our local paper and they were running a very nice, on-line, deal.
3 month for the price of one, which, in this case, is $26.

I ordered the paper on June 23rd.
On-line.
And I was told it would start coming on the 24th.

Except that it didn't.
And it didn't show up on the 25th.
So, I checked and they said that it would now be starting on the 26th.

In the meanwhile, my son, Aaron, was running out, every morning to get a copy of the newspaper for his grandfather.

Well, the 26th came and went, and no newspaper.
And the 27th, and the 28th.


It is now July 9th.
And guess what?
It still hasn't shown up on our driveway, not even in the ditch near the driveway,
not even smack dab in the center of our not busy street.

In the meanwhile, I have called the newspaper's subscription department 5 times.
That is slightly misleading.
I called on 4 different days, but , once, I was disconnected, which is why it was 5 times.

I have also emailed them 5 or 6 times.
I could check, but that is the smallest part of the story or , at least, it was until today.

The first time I called, well, the second, because of getting disconnected,
I was told that the paper would come on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.
That was a Monday or Tuesday a week agao.

Then I called and was told that someone made that up,
and the new person went and took all of my information, again.
She was setting up so that we would no, finally, get paper delivery.

Then I called and was told they really couldn't do anything because it was an on-line order,
and it needs to be forwarded from that place.
Then I called and asked to speak with a supervisor.

Guess what?
They didn't let me speak with a supervisor,
but the woman did take all of my information, again, and said she would "escalate" it.

In the meanwhile, except for the very first call I made ( when I was disconnected),
I emailed the Indy Star , as well as calling.
And this also got me nowhere.

Today, this morning, I finally got what almost seems like an intelligent response.
It even apologized for the delay in responding to my email...
of course, I am wondering which one of my emails, but, at least, they acknowledge having received one.

But, as I read down the message the intelligence of it seemed to evaporate.
They need my house number and my phone number, because they do not have it.
I have given it to them on-line and on the phone 4 times.
It was included in the emails I sent.

This is what the message read:


Dear Valued Subscriber,
Thank you for contacting The Indianapolis Star. Your #1 news source in Central Indiana.

We appreciate your business and would like to help any way we can.

However, we need additional information before we can process your request. If you would be so kind as to reply with your house number, street address and telephone number, it would be much appreciated. It is our goal to make sure we are meeting the needs of our subscribers.

Once I receive your account information, I can better determine what course of action we need to take. I apologize for the delay in a response to your email.





I am being nice and not including the staff member's name.
Although, considering what happened next, I am not sure why I should be nice.



My response to this guy was to copy the original email notification I had received , after subscribing on-line, on July 23rd.
That notification ( sent to this same email address) happens to include my name, address, phone number and charge account information.
It also says that delivery was supposed to start on June 24th, but hey, let us not be picky.



It also has the year I was born and my blood type.
Okay, it did not have my blood type, but there was , clearly, no way that he could really say they did not have my information.



The email I was sent on June 23rd also had the rate for the paper- the one I had agreed to.



Well, in response to my email, reminding them that they have all of that, not just reminding them but copying and pasting the email they sent me with all of that information, I got a rather prompt response from another of their inept employees.



This time, they man says that there is no record of it ( except the official email from them?? Or does he not consider that a record. And what happened to all of the calls I made and gave the same information over and over)- okay, so he says there is no record of it,
BUT he is entering the information and signing me up for daily newspaper delivery and charging me $312 payable for the year, now.



Excuse me...when did my agreeing to a $26 charge became my agreeing to a $312 charge ...
and how is it that they have my full charge card information, all of the sudden, when they have no record of my subscribing?



I sent a rather short - both in length and in temper- response back asking how he could charge me for a different amount than I had agreed to be charged.



I suspect that I will not receive another prompt response;
I suspect that I will be back to multiple phone calls and unanswered emails.



I also do not actually expect the newspaper to show up at the end of my driveway.
I have been promised a number of start dates, all of which came and went without the arrival of even one newspaper.


I am , however, about to call my charge card company and tell them that I do not authorize ANY payments to the Indianapolis Star.



As for my father-in-law,
either my son will be occasionally getting him a newspaper, or we will find some out of town paper that will mail him a copy.
Yes, it might arrive a week late, but, so far, that sounds a few weeks better than the local paper seems to be able to do.