I want my M Key back.

So I got my laptop back. Kinda. I'll explain. Here's the timeline, to date....
     On 11th January 2004, my laptop broke. That's already a matter of record. It shut itself off, and, when I tried to turn it back on, it did nothing much more than insist that the operating system was not found.
     Since I'd got the thing at BestBuy, it seemed oddly logical that taking it back there might count as a good thing, since I'd already spent an extra three hundred bucks on the extended warranty. So I ran with it. I took the thing back to BestBuy, explained the problem, mentioned a couple others--the DVRom was faltering; a couple of keys and the left mouse button were failing; stuff--and left it with them to be fixed, which they promised would occur by 25th January 2004. Not that I tend to believe promises like that, in general; I just hang onto the documentation turning the promise into a contract.
     On 27th January 2004, Hunter called BestBuy to find out why I didn't have a computer yet. The reason, of course, was that the thing was broken.
     Why no one at BestBuy bothered call us to tell us that it was broken remains a mystery; it took us calling them to get this amazing information.
     Somehow, the harddrive had been destroyed by some stealthy liquidy stuff which had snuck up into the drive through two layers of shielding and the laptop casing itself. That was somehow my fault, which meant that I had to spend another $358 to get my laptop back. Yay.
     Not that I had to, of course. Instead, I could get my laptop back, still broken, and have someone else replace the drive, thus nullifying the nonrefundable three-hundred-dollar warranty. Everyone has a choice.
     So. Under duress, I authorised the replacement. For $358.
     Tonightish, on 9th February 2004, I called BestBuy to find out where in hell my laptop was. After spending an hour calling back over and over to get anyone at Extension Forty-nine [Repairs] to answer the damned phone--while, half the time, the computer which answers the phone for BestBuy wouldn't even answer the phone--I got through to the imbecile Hunter recorded on the twenty-seventh, now known as Anna, the lowlevel grunt who isn't even remotely a manager, and who may or may not have been with BestBuy as long ago as way back when I gave them my laptop on 11th January 2004.
     Anna looked up my account and stopped doing anything of use to ask whether I was recording her. I wasn't. So she told me that, in fact, my laptop had just come in. Like, during the downtime in which she'd stopped doing anything relevant to ask me whether I was recording her. Just at that instant, my laptop materialised in front of her.
     Yay. I got in the car.
     Then, this happened.
     I got my laptop back. Of course, the drive had been replaced, so starting the thing up didn't do much good for me. Meanwhile, no one seems to know where the original drive, which BestBuy are required to give me back by federal law, has gone. All they got back from California was the laptop and the powercord. If the laptop had a drive when I gave it to them a month ago, they can't imagine where it might be these days.
     Also, while my laptop reintengrated into our universe during the very instant that Anna was digressing off on any potential recording devices I might have had running [which I kinda wish I'd had running after all], the invoice reports that BestBuy got my laptop back on 3rd February 2004; why no one called us to tell us that, leaving me to call them to ask where my stolen computer might have been, also remains a mystery.
     Oh, and, in a meretricious display of extemporaneous PauseActing, damned if they don't need $378 from me for replacing the drive.
     Huh. Curious. Right there on the invoice, we have three interesting little bits of data: the estimate was for $358; the total was for $378, and California Law, which apparently applies to everything on the invoice, states that a company can't charge more in the end than the estimate was for, without prior written consent from the billed party. Me. The guy who owns the original recorded conversation in which Hunter agreed to $358, in protest and under duress; to my knowledge, BestBuy have no particular chance in hell of successfully faking a written order from either of us for this increased figure. Which, on its own, is just thrilling.
     That aside, the laptop isn't fixed.
     Sure, the drive works. Kinda. When the computer bothers to turn itself on. Which isn't terribly often now that the UpArrow key--faultless as of a month ago--pretends to be stuck. Which is to say that, while it's not stuck physically, the system thinks that the UpArrow key is constantly depressed. On startup, it prevents anything useful from happening, and merely causes the system to beep in stacato panic instead of loading the OS for me; if the system manages to get all the way into loading Windoze...I'll put it this way: I'm typing this on Hunter's laptop, since I got tired of hitting Control Z followed by Control End every few seconds when the cursor leaped the hell up to the first line on me, whether the UpArrow key was even attached to the keyboard or not.
     Also, some idiot stole my M key and gave me a second J key, which really sucks since I huntpeck and have no measurable idea where in hell the M key is if I can't actually see it.
     So. That's roughly where we are on that. Except, of course, that I got the laptop back at six or seven, then went to the mall, then went off to VillageIdiot to reinstal the OS, first catching this UpArrow issue five minutes before BestBuy closed for the night. So I haven't managed to do anything new about this yet.
     Incidentally, a laptop which does nothing more than beep loudly and incessantly about the UpArrow key being jammed when you start it up is not a good thing to have in a restaurant. People stare. And shriek. Avoid.
     So I'm not sure what in hell I'm supposed to do now. Logically, I should take the laptop back to BestBuy and get them to fix the new problems. Given the fraud, extortion, and general lies I've got from them over the last month, though, I'm not quite expecting a lot of good to come of that.
     At the very least, if I take it 'back' to BestBuy, I'm taking it to a larger, better store this time. Half the problem might be that I went to the BestBuy of Lurking Poverty and Illiteracy a month ago; I know a better one here in town, which might actually contain smart people in Customer Service. Who knows.
     Anyway: that's pretty much that. I got the laptop back and fought with it for three hours before convincing it to upload the image of the new keyboard layout. I sure as hell can't count on it to record the radio show or let me type a novel while it's doing this. Maybe next month, when I can probably expect to get it back again from these criminals. Maybe not. Time will tell.
     More later....
--Gremlin

Follow Ups:

• Slight update posted by Gremlin [24.8.31.52 - c-24-8-31-52.client.comcast.net] on 11 February 2004 at 05.08.14 ZuluTime (1)
  • Slighter update posted by Gremlin [24.8.31.52 - c-24-8-31-52.client.comcast.net] on 12 February 2004 at 11.05.02 ZuluTime (0)
• Wait a minute posted by Jurassosaurus [63.191.8.179 - sdn-ap-014caburbP0179.dialsprint.net] on 11 February 2004 at 03.37.08 ZuluTime (1)
  • Re: Wait a minute posted by Hunter [24.8.14.102 - c-24-8-14-102.client.comcast.net] on 11 February 2004 at 04.04.31 ZuluTime (0)