Friday: I have a chat with an Air Miles representative

Air Miles are stupid. We’ve been collecting them for YEARS and we’ve never been able to go anywhere with them. As of right now, I don’t even have enough for a bus ticket to Kitchener. Then a new grocery store opened in a nearby town, and they give you Air Miles which can be converted into cash for groceries. When I told Ken, he tried to have our existing multitude of Air Miles transferred, but they wouldn’t let us do that. So what do I do with these stupid Air Miles? I went on their website and it was more than useless, other than to tell me that I could buy a Montblanc fountain pen for 5,000 Air miles and $125 dollars cash. Not a great deal. And I couldn’t find anywhere where it said I could get a gift card. I figured that since Rona gives you Air Miles, you MUST be able to get gift cards for there, and I had a plan for a new garden. Then I saw the Live Chat function and figured that would be easier than trying to navigate their equally stupid website. I clicked on Have a Live Chat with an Agent, and waited. Then “Stephen” came on-line.

“Hello Ken. How can I help?” I loved it. This guy thought I was Ken, and he had no way of knowing that I wasn’t. I could do ANYTHING I wanted. I explained my issue about the gift cards to him, and the notification came up that he “was typing.” Then he typed this: “Ken, I hear you.” And it kind of freaked me out. Was Stephen trying to be hip and cool, or like, comfort me or something? Then he told me he had some good news and bad news for me, and proceeded to give me some gobbledy-goop about how they’ve discontinued their gift cards etc., but I really wasn’t paying attention because all I could think about was what if he COULD hear me? What if it wasn’t a platitude, but a WARNING?!

Obviously this was a real concern, and at the end of the chat, I thanked him for the help, then asked, “By the way, can you really hear me? Because I just swore at my cat.” I didn’t really, but it occurred to me that I needed a way to verify his eavesdropping abilities. Plus, he thought I was Ken, so I was in the clear as far as any Humane Society action went. His reply, though, was, “No, I can’t, Ken. Just don’t hurt your cat,” and I had a moment of terrible guilt that I had just implicated Ken in a cat abuse scandal, but then Stephen added a smiley face, which made me feel better, and more secure in the knowledge that the Air Miles people couldn’t ACTUALLY hear what went on in my house. So I responded with “Don’t worry, I won’t. She’s actually very sweet aside from peeing on my bathmat instead of her litter box which is RIGHT BESIDE the bathmat.” This is actually true, and DOES make me swear at her on occasion because it’s just illogical, and shows that she has a perversely malicious streak that no one else knows about. But he just responded with “Okay. Is there anything else I can help with Ken?” because I guess his cat empathy had reached its limit. I typed in “No, but I appreciate the help”, then he said, “Thanks for connecting with me via chat,” only for a second I thought he said via “CAT” and I started to laugh really hard. Air Miles. They might be stupid, but their reps are pretty clever.