I’ve spent a lot of time in customer  service purgatory recently. It’s not  quite hell, because if all works as  planned, I can eventually punch  enough numbers to complete my  transaction and exit to a better place.  Purgatory isn’t forever, but existing in  an in-between state of being with  nothing to do but wonder if touching  1, 2, 3 or 4 on the keypad, followed by  the pound sign, will actually  get me what I need certainly  feels like forever.

Often, I push a random  number in error and have to  start over, languishing in these  “purification” systems for up  to an hour.And from that, purgatory  would be a step up.

(Enough of the bad religious  metaphors. I’m trying to  be blasphemous enough to  get the very Rev. Ted Haggard  worked into a lather, but he’s  got bigger problems to worry  about. What has happened to him anyway?  He fell from grace – oops, those  metaphors again – and then poof, no  one’s heard about him for months.)

I recently bundled my data and communications  services, which required  me to deal with more than a half-dozen  customer-service departments, most  automated, to hook up and unhook my  new and old service and resolve billing  questions. In the 21st century,when the  activating chips for a nuclear warhead  can fit into a thimble with room to  spare, this should be no problem.

But it is. A huge one. Half the world  now knows my mother’s maiden name.

As annoying as the automated  responses were, the conversations  with live people were even less pleasant.  If there were Olympic competition  for speed talking, the U.S. customer  service team would bring home  enough gold to retouch the dome on  the state Capitol. Perhaps these people  are paid a commission based on how  many words they can squeeze into a  minute. If this is true, the woman who  helped me with the satellite TV part of  my request has retired nicely to the  Cayman Islands by now.

“Could you please slow down?” I  asked when she paused to take a breath.

Which is another way of saying that I  am old. I’m not, or at least not decrepitly  so, but I could tell by the way she  drew out each syllable and grabbed a  megaphone before speaking into the  receiver that she thought I was 90 or so.

“I’m sor-ry ma-am,” she  asked with a condescending  tone,”is this bet-ter?”

Bet-ter, no. More ir-ri-tating,  yes.

Complicating matters is  that as a technological illiterate,  I still cling to the outdated  notion that someone will  answer basic installation questions  not covered by the limited  warranty. These are the  most important words you’ll  ever read in small print: limited  warranty. They mean you’re on  your own unless you can act pathetic  enough to get an explanation out of  sympathy.It sometimes works,but more  often than not they get you to the brink  of enlightenment and then offer to sell  you a premium warranty package that  will help you turn on your computer so  you can access the user guide that’s  stored on the hard drive.

I had dial-up Internet service for five  years before I made the switch to highspeed.  I make this fact known on the  front end of any conversation involving  questions about my recent investment  in electronics.This should tell them that  I don’t know a modem from a plenum  patch, which sounds like a covering for  a wound in an embarrassing place.

Do these customer service people  feel any sympathy over the fact that I’m  trying to navigate 21st-century technology  with a 19th-century grasp of it? No,  they see dollar signs and many zeros,  and premium-level warranty packages  into infinity.

I miss customer service with the  emphasis on service. It’s becoming a  lost art.