I know that I am not alone in this complaint about my wireless phone service provider. I decided to take them up on the offer to add on a second line of wireless service, so that I can communicate with my fiancé using the free mobile-to-mobile feature. Yesterday's attempt to activate that second line of service took about 2.5 hours to accomplish. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but I detected that things were about to go off course when the operator said that she would need my credit card number to verify me, even though I've been slave to their service for nearly ten years. This came as a surprise even to her. I provided the number and things seemed to get back on track. At this point, I am trying to pay attention to my fiancé's daughter, who is taking her weekly gymnastics lesson. When it comes time to provide the shipping address, there is another hiccup: the AT&T operator cannot get my office address to verify in the FedEx database. There's a Mailboxes, Etc. next door to me, and FedEx delivers to them every day. We have the same street address, but different suite numbers. Not wanting to stall any longer (the operator had a case of laryngitis), she takes down my home address and tell me that she will transfer me to someone who can carry on with the address verification for my office address. She transfers me, and Amy, the woman who is supposed to be able to solve the shipping address problemo begins to talk to me about the issue. Within thirty seconds, the call is dropped and I have to call them back. The next person that I talk to (Carla) says that I cannot change the shipping address, that I will have to cancel the order and start all over again! So, I went to work hounding this one to change the address and/or to put Amy back on. "Amy has stepped out." So, I ask for a supervisor. Bad idea. I get put on hold, or as I like to call it, "time out." After a few minutes, I hang up and call back. It's Carla, again! And I am back on hold! Hang up. Call back and cancel the order. Start from scratch. The next operator tells me that I cannot activate a second line of service until the next day, as the "system is down." I will have to wait another day. I attempt to tell her that I just activated and cancelled service within minutes of this call and want to start over with the ordeal. Hold. Hang up. Call back. Finally, I find someone (Nathan?) who irons things out, waives the shipping charges and restores my confidence, but not for long. The CSR to whom he transfers me in order to upgrade my plan to meet with the demands of the promotion tells me that she cannot detect evidence that I have activated a second line. Nathan tells her that she will have to activate my "sharable plan" before she can see the second line. She does, but she still cannot. So, as I close this entry and get back to work, I anticipate adding another chapter to the epic that is my detestable mLife...