(1)

Dear Tommy Lee Jones,

Congrats on the 1993 Oscar, and on that television voice-over gig for SBC. Sweet.

Jeez, Tommy, I miss SBC. They used to give me trouble-free phone service. Then, a few months ago, I began preparing for my big move out of the city by purchasing a T-Mobile cell phone.

Huge mistake.

- - -

(2)

Dear Catherine Zeta-Jones,

Kudos on the 2002 Oscar, and on your spokesmodel flacking job for T-Mobile. My new T-Mobile phone can do amazing things: play games, take pictures, wake me up with selections from Götterdämmerung.

Its sole weakness lies in the area of providing decent telephone service.

My neighbors talk on their non-T-Mobile cell phones all the time: while eating, while gardening, while sitting on the crapper.

The one place my T-Mobile phone can make a connection is at the far end of my driveway … but only on the left side.

So I wrote to your co-workers at T-Mobile, Cathy. They said this area has “a few holes.”

Funny, I get five bars at each of the half-dozen local shopping malls … which all sell T-Mobile phones, by the way.

Then they offered 50 free bonus minutes to amend the situation.

But if the phone won’t work here, extra minutes aren’t much help, are they?

- - -

(3)

Dear James Earl Jones,

You may be wondering why you haven’t yet won an Oscar. I suspect this is God’s punishment for being Verizon’s front man. Shame on you, Jimmy.

Verizon is the phone company that has a stranglehold monopoly on landlines in this neighborhood. The first open installation date on their schedule was 10 days after I contacted them. It seemed like a long time, but what could I do? Switch to the Dixie-Cup-and-a-String Phone Company?

So I waited all day, on the appointed date. No installer. When I called them from the T-Mobile phone, out on the left-hand side of my driveway, they said it would take at least another week. After I pissed and moaned, they offered a $25 credit for the inconvenience.

I tried to tell ‘em I’d rather have a competent telephone company, but the damn T-Mobile phone cut me off.

Have your people call my people,
Alan C. Baird