Single for a Reason®

Who knew?  Dante Alighieri was a contemporary writer despite having died in 1321.

My November began with this view and it’s been straight down, as in hurtling toward the center of the earth Dante “The Divine Comedy” style, since then.

Nothing life threatening, just life numbing.

Dante got close to naming it when he designated “Limbo” as one of the circles of hell.

If he were writing his “Inferno” today, he’d have to include a sub menu for Limbo, initially written as a more ontological state of being.  This modern limbo would be called Automated Limbo: a voice mail hell-state of limbo where live human beings are perpetually promised but fail to appear.

I took this photograph early Monday morning, November 2, and since then I’ve been on a permanent loop of  10-30 minute blocks of automated voice hell alternating between “Your call is important to us” to muzak surely composed by those undergoing electrocution.

The object of my calls has been Verizon and Comcast and a local physician’s office but I know this could be just about any customer service line still in business today.  All businesses with the exception of Nordstroms, which unfortunately (Are you listening President Obama?), is not yet in charge of Utilities such as internet, phone and cable services or the “public” health plan option and medical prescriptions.

The result of all this voice hell?  My residential service was inadvertently canceled so now I have to use my cell phone to get to Dante’s Limbo.  Ever listened to Musak on a cell phone speaker for 10 minutes?The next call shall be to the ear doctor.

Oi.

Dante and Virgil, his guide, survived the rings of hell, right?

I’m not sure they’re making it out of Limbo Voice Hell to Paradiso in 2009.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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