AOL.COM UGH ! (NO TRANSLATION)

When living in a foreign country, the internet is essential.  You need it to handle finances, pay bills, make travel reservations, and mostly for communication.  Yes, I do have a Magic Jack phone line, when the internet is working.  I have already told you of all the problems with dealing with Telecable.  To further the chaos, there is AOL.COM.  For forty or fifty years, I have used AOL for my email account.  Every morning, I check it and usually one or more times a day.  For all these years, all I had to do was click on "Mail" and there were my messages (as long as I was using my own computer) Since I have friends around the globe, that is the only way I can keep in touch with people.  The postal system here is so bad that even the Government Utility companies won't use it.  They send their employees to each house to deliver the bill every other month.  A friend in The States once sent me a Christmas card, and I did get it.  IN MARCH!!   Although I do have a Mexican phone, most  of my "snow bird" friends to not, so they use email to communicate while they are in Mexico.

For the past many months, when I try to log on AOL they want me to sign up again.  First they ask for my user name.  Once I type that in the "password" automatically pops up.  But when I click "sign in", it rejects the password.  I did not type it in, AOL put it up.  How could it be wrong?  So you click on "forgot password", but the problems just starts there.  They want to send me a new password to my cell phone or an alternate email account.  Well, of course they cannot send it to the only email account I have because it won't open.  But I do not have an alternate email account, nor do I have a cell phone in the United States.  It will not accept my Magic Jack number because it does not take text messages.  I have tried my Mexican cell phone, but it has too many digits, so I am stuck.  Nothing to do but to click on "Help".  They take you through of series of possible problems, none of which is any help to me, while they also try to sell you new programs.

You have to page through reams of stuff before they finally offer a phone for "custom service"  What a misnomer that is!  I have files for everything  including one for AOL where I had written down a telephone number for them, but of course it was disconnected.  I have also written down all the different passwords they have made me come up with, but none are any good.  So I call the new number and wait, and wait and wait.  Finally someone for whom English is obviously not their native tongue (I think India or maybe Pakistan)   Of course I was not in a good mood having been trying to get to my mail for nearly an hour.  Apparently she did not like my tone of voice because she hung up on me.  (Or maybe it was when I apologized for not speaking Farsi)


The next time  I try to be a little more civil.  After explaining my problem with no alternate email or an American cell phone, she gives me a temporary password.  It is all caps, but my user name is lower case.  So it takes me a few attempts to get it right.  Then it wants a new password (typed twice, why I do not know)  I type in my usual password and they say they cannot accept it as they already have it on record.  Well then Why in the Hell did it not work??  So I come up with a variation of the number which I immediately wrote on my AOL file.  Once it opened I asked her again why this is necessary every few months.  She said it was for my own security.  Security for what?  I am not accessing my bank accounts or credit cards.  It is just stupid email (most of it spam).  It is not as if I carry secret classified documents on it.  Then she said that I must have a "bug" and for $4.99 a month they can fix that. AHA!!  Now I know why they are doing this.  They want to start charging me for what is supposed to be a free account.  Who ever said, "follow the money" knew what they were talking about.  I think it was Deep Throat (no not Linda Lovelace)

So, for the time being I have email again and can get and receive messages.  Of course this very blog was set up over 5 years ago as a way of letting my friends around the globe follow my life in Mexico with my having to write each one of them (another example of my laziness).  But I now have more readers than I have friends (dead of alive).   My blog server has a stat mode they tells me how many readers I have per day and per month. This month it shows 330 readers (more people than friends than I have had in my life. .  A map of the world lights up from light green to dark green depending how many readers I have in that country.  According to the map, I have more readers in Alaska, Russia and China than any country except The U.S.  Who are you?  Not to dismiss my Alaskan readers, but I am most interested in China and Russia.  One would think I would be banned in those countries.  Or, maybe Putin and Xi Jinping actually encourage readers to my blog as an example of the decadence of us Capitalist Pigs!   I would love to hear from you.  A few of my friends send me comments, but not many.  Don't be afraid to expose your email account.  You know I do not sell anything on my blog and I promise not to barrage you with stupid email jokes (too lazy for that).
With that in mind ......

Hasta Lluego!

lagunalary@aol.com