FRUSTRATIONS OF MODERN LIFE IN SUBURBAN AMERICA

So, this happened tonight.
I have been using the same old laptop for ages. An old Dell I got for maybe $600 in 2009; back when their commercials featured a young stoner exclaiming, “Dude! You’re gettin’ a Dell!”
Anyway, it ain’t pretty. It has clear packing tape on the outside. It takes about four minutes to completely boot up and another minute to exchange greetings with the Internet and get rolling online. But once it gets going, it goes along just fine, and the damned thing has worked every single time I’ve turned it on. 
That is, until November, my birthday, when I decided it was time to upgrade, as it were. So I bought myself a fancy, up-to-date laptop-slash-tablet, touch-screen, lightning fast, full of RAM and ROM and all kinds of important acronyms.
It runs Windows 8, which I hate, but I’m willing to get used to. It boots up in about 15 seconds.
So, I took my time. I moved all my important stuff from the old Dell to the new Lenovo. My brother helped me move all my music and that was that. It was like emptying the glove compartment of a car you’ve driven for years. But for the past few weeks I’ve been groovin’ on the new-car smell, drivin’ the new Lenovo through town while the old Dell sat in the driveway. I was getting quite used to the ease of a touch-screen, and I was finally learning where keys like “delete”, “page down”, and so forth are on the new keyboard.
Then, tonight, just a couple of hours ago as a matter of fact, I was propped up on my bed, touch-screening away to my heart’s delight, posting droll quips about the oncoming blizzard on Facebook. I noticed a hair, clinging to the upper edge of the touch-screen, and went to wipe it away. It didn’t move. It wasn’t a hair. It was a crack, and as I watched, helpless, breathless, it grew, emitting the faintest screeching sound, until it reached from the upper edge of the screen to the lower one. My eight week-old computer.
Here is a tech tip for the most technologically inept of you: touch-screens do not work well with a giant crack in them. 
OK, shit happens. Time to address the problem. My evening has now transformed from a leisurely night browsing Facebook and watching Antiques Roadshow, to a night of Dealing With a Fucked Up Brand Fucking New Computer.
Step One: Warranty. 
Now, I am no web designer. What do I know? But, it seems to me, that when you find yourself at a web page which has just confirmed to you that your device, based on its serial number, is still under warranty, there should be some sort of link provided where you can work on getting your device repaired. Not so at Lenovo’s website. There were links, however, where you could purchase additional, “enhanced” coverage, but no instruction on how to go about using it. Their “Contact Us” link, instead of leading to any kind of real directory or even a simple phone number, dragged me into a rabbit hole of questions which were supposed to make it easier for them to “meet my needs” but instead left me a half an hour later with rising aggravation levels and still no closer to being helped.
Next I turn to my credit card receipt which is conveniently located online at the American Express website. Jackpot! A phone number! I don’t care if it’s the number of the employee lunchroom, I’m calling it.
Before long, I finally had “Tech Support” on the line. She said her name was “Jolie” but she sounded about as French as Tandoori Chicken. Jolie listened politely to my story, and in a mere 15 minutes she was able to provide me with all the information which I had already been able to provide for myself via the internet. After only five more minutes she was already able to tell me that this sort of problem is not covered under my warranty; but they can nevertheless fix the problem for a $99 “consumable but non-refundable” deposit (“consumable?” really?) and an estimated repair bill of $250 to $300. For an eight week-old laptop that decided to go spontaneously Mirror Crack’d  on me out of nowhere. Thanks for standing behind your product, “Jolie”.
I am always cordial to customer service reps, particularly if they are probably being paid a hundred bucks a month or something, so “You’re kidding,” was the best I could muster. “I’ll have to call you back.”
I could practically hear her sneering at me through the telephone line as she gave me my reference number.
But here’s where things get better. 
I called American Express. Now there’s a company who knows how to do customer service. I had their 800-number in moments, and within two or three minutes I was talking to someone who could actually help me. I was talking to actual Americans, who knew that it was about to snow shitloads in Massachusetts, and the proper usage of “y’all”.
Anyway, American Express has a program called “purchase protection”, which is coverage for 90 days, for up to $1000, for a case just like mine. If things go my way, it looks as though they will pay to either repair or replace the fancy new laptop. 
Thank you, American Express. I’m not usually one to profess gratitude or affection for huge, faceless multinational corporations, but thank you. 
In the meantime, I’m back in the driver’s seat of the old 2009 Inspiron. My fingers know where all the keys on the keyboard are. It ain’t pretty, but it runs.