My brother Vincent is a piece of work. I can say that, I’m his big sister, and it’s true. His is a character, just like my mother is, and sometimes he is worse. He has all kinds of quirks and mannerisms that are so distinctive. When he talks, with his hands flying and his face animated, you can’t help but laugh. He is Italian, so that is part of the reason for all the gestures. But, my brother is passionate about everything and I mean everything. He either loves it or hates it and he conveys that in his stories about life, family, and the many businesses he deals with for goods and services. If you think I am good at writing letters of complaint, you aint’ seen nothing when it comes to him. He will have the CEO calling him and eating out of his hand, if he isn’t happy about something. He will get all kinds of discounts to shut him up too.
For example, he came over this Sunday for dinner, to celebrate the New Year with us. He comes over every Sunday, either for dinner or coffee and cake, and never fails to have a story for us. This week it was about his cell phone and Verizon’s data plan. Apparently, he lost the ability to connect to the internet for a few minutes and made several calls to Verizon. They had him go through the steps of checking the phone battery etc. and then, before they could move on to the next step, they disconnected him. Needless to say he was pissed. He called back and the next customer service person disconnected him before they even got started. So he calls back and demands to speak to a manager. They tell him everyone wants to speak to a manager. He uses his expertise, because he has done this so many times before, and gets a manager. The manger says they will give him $5 of credit for the outage. My brother says, “Five dollars? For my inconvenience and being disconnected twice?” The man says the disconnects were an accident. My brother informs him that the first disconnect was an accident, the second one was on purpose. The manager says he will give him one month’s credit on the phone bill. That’s a lot for a few minutes of outage, but not for Vin. Nope, he wasn’t having it! Again he tells the manager he doesn’t think one month is sufficient for his aggravation. Besides that, he informs him that he has been a loyal customer for a long time. He was a customer when his phone only had 90 minutes per month! Yes, 90 minutes per month…did I mention my brother was frugal? Back then he only used the phone for emergencies or in case my mother needed him. The manager, tired of listening to my brother’s saga, that goes back to the time of Adam and Eve, says he will go talk to his supervisor. After a brief absence he comes back to the phone and says they will give him 2 months of phone credit! Can you believe it? He was without internet service for a few minutes and now he gets two months free service. You should have seen the look of consummate satisfaction on his face at the end of his story. Another victory scored! He was pretty happy with the outcome.
I have lots of similar stories, where my brother shook things up and they all end one better than the next. We come for a long line of complainers, it’s in our blood. I was thinking of starting a video series called, “Sunday Afternoons with Vin” and posting them here on the blog. There is no reason why everyone can’t enjoy his entertainingly hilarious stories. I’ll see what I can do, but meanwhile I’d like to know if anyone is interested?
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