Here's a customer service story that will surely make you have some sort of reaction and whatnot.

I only have one credit card. I've had it for over a decade. It originally was my dad's, but he gave it to me while I was in college. We have the same name, so, technically, the card has really always been his, but I'm the only one who uses it, pays it off, etc.

Whenever I have to call the card company, they have to verify that I'm who I say I am. (Which I'm not, because I'm really my dad in this case.) First they ask me for the last four digits of my social security number, to which I give them my number, which is incorrect, because they have my dad's number on file. I've never bothered to change this because when they hear the wrong answer, they consistently move on to question number two: My (dad's) mother's maiden name. This answer I know, so I give it to them, and I become my dad, and am therefore authorized to make any number of crucial decisions regarding my (dad's) card.

A month or so ago, while talking to my credit card company, I was talked into buying into some plan where I would receive my credit score, which I've been trying to obtain for years, usually to be given a readout that shows me living at a combination of two past addresses, and having a birthdate a year off from my real one. And no credit score listed. So I figured I'd give it another shot, for ten bucks, using a service which I would have to cancel myself to avoid being charged the ten bucks month after month.

So after a month of receiving absolutely nothing, I called up the service to cancel.

The woman who answered the phone was cool with that, but just needed to verify that I was the cardholder. I gave her my card number. She then asked for the last four digits of my SSN. Uh-oh. I gave her mine, knowing that this wouldn't be what she had in front of her. She told me my number was incorrect. "The number they have isn't right. They usually just ask me for my mother's maiden name," I said, playing dumb about the dad thing.

"Well, let me get someone from your card company on the line to verify this."

Fair enough.

After a short wait, I find myself in the clothed kind of three-way. The woman from my card company begins the usual routine: "Can I have the last four digits of your SSN, please." I give her the incorrect numbers. She pleasantly says, "That's not what I have here. Can I get your mother's maiden name?" I give her the correct name. Problem solved?

No. Little Miss Dunbar at the credit score service place, listening in on the official business of me and the card company lady, chimes in. "Can you verify his social security number, too?"

Pure evil. My card lady over here has just confirmed me as officially being me, er, my dad, and the other lady thinks she can overrule this decision. And my card lady agrees with her!

The good lady is now asking me for my SSN again, with Nosy Nancy looking over her shoulder.

I end up explaining the whole situation, to which the card company lady is not pleased. "You can't just turn a card over to someone else like a car lease." Whatever. BS. I've never had a problem in ten freakin' years. I know at this moment that I'm just going to call my dad, ask him what his number is, and just continue pretending to be him, with no skin removed from his back. F those people.

So I called my parents, got my mom, and she gave me my dad's SSN.

Here's the best part: I call back the credit score people, hoping to all that is holy that I get a different operator. I do. I tell this one, a nice Jamaican woman, that I'd like to cancel the service. She asks for my name and card number. I give them to her. She then surprises me with: "Okay, it's cancelled."

"But I don't need to verify..." I start to ask.

"Nope, we just need your card number."

And that was that. I'll continue using my card as I always have.

How is it that one company can have two employees, one who needs to go out of her way to have a credit card company confirm someone's existence, and then decide that that's still not good enough for her, and one who'll gladly cancel their own service, just trusting that you are who you say you are?

Which do you appreciate more, Chan asked me when I told him this story. The Jamaican lady, because she was nice about it. I guess. I don't know. Way to mess up a perfectly good story, Chan.

About this miner story. Horrible. That people lost lives, and that other people made assumptions about the most important thing of all, and turned out to be exactly wrong.

That said, why was everyone so excited about the fact that 12 out of 13 people made it out in the first place. Isn't that rubbing it in to the family of the one guy who'd died. Church bells? "It's a miracle"? How about, "We're sorry that one dude died."?

It's almost like "god," if there is one, was getting back at all those celebrating people by saying "Whoops, my bad, all your guys died, it was the dead guy who actually made it. So go congratulate his family. Go ring the church bells for him."

But they didn't do that. They got all pissed.

I feel so bad for that guy who survived, who survived a horrible ordeal, barely escaping with his life, only to emerge to a crazed mob, instead of a bunch of people celebrating the fact that he lived. It's like they're saying to him, "We were happy when you were dead and everyone else was alive. But now all we have is you.

Granted, it's not their fault, all they did was believe what they were told. Although maybe not celebrating until you actually see your family member alive is the way to go.

And what if the original word was "8 alive, 5 dead"? What's the call, too many dead for church bells? And then if those numbers turned out to be backwards, still pissed?

What's the cutoff, percentage-wise? 316 of 1100 people died in that scene described by Quint in Jaws, and he didn't seem very happy about it.

To make this post even longer, Chan and I just watched #1 USC get beat. Terrible job by that USC QB at the end. I call him Curtis Pig-skin-ic. Kinda looks like Leskanic.

And don't forget to check out MAJ.