I’ve always been happy with AT&T’s cell phone service. I would even defend them to anyone who said “they suck”. That was before my husband spent two hours on the phone with them for a simple request which would have ultimately resulted in AT&T getting a little more of our money every month than they have been getting.

First we wanted to drop one of our three lines. It has been our experience that a lot of companies have a serious problem with one simple fact of life: that kids grow up and eventually start paying for their own stuff. Later I’ll have to tell Number Two Son that I’m so proud of him for not choosing AT&T.

After dropping that one line we wanted to buy two new phones and switch to a plan that includes texting and Internet access. From listening to my husband’s side of the conversation, it sounded like AT&T’s responses amounted to…

What? What? You must be speaking Alpha Centaurian. I can’t understand what you’re trying to say.

Oh, yes. We can do that. Anything to make you happy. We are here to serve.

No, sorry we can’t do that.

Let me transfer you.

… over and over again for two hours, when they finally ran out of people to transfer the call to.

The final answer: We can’t make any changes until April 1st, which is appropriate because that’s April Fools Day. Until then I will be thinking about that date as the day we finally get out from under the fools at AT&T and sign the next two years of our lives over to the fools at a different phone company. I know you might say they have made fools of us and you might be right, but it helps to think of them that way and that also is true. AT&T could have been getting more of our money and now they will soon be getting much less. (We’ll still use AT&T for the old-fashioned phone on the wall.)