Handies, Mobiles, Cells…who really needs them.

Hello Everybody,

Here is the latest news about our T-Mobile Phone Company…and the verdict is…they suck.  So Rene has been trying to get her account sorted and up to date with Terror-Mobile, she thought when she called to shut her phone off, when her phone was stolen, all would be good and proper…FALSE. 

Well they did put a hold on her phone, but I guess it was a little late and when she went to explain to them that a $200+ charge was placed on the phone when it was stolen and tried to get that charge removed, they said, they couldn’t because we had not been paying any of our bills.”   Ummm what?  We had a sneaky suspicion about the whole payment process from the beginning.  We thought we were on a withdrawal program with them, and we are, but here’s the problem…they had the wrong account number, I’ll explain that later, at the time of Rene’s call she did not know nor did I, that the account number was wrong. Although the Volks at Terror-Mobile could have told us why they were not getting payment.   Also it was not my fault this time, but I did mess up later.

Rene then sends me to pay for the bills minus the 200 dollar charge at the bank and of course, try to set up a withdrawal account with TERROR-MOBILE.  I strap on my walk shoes and grab my dictionary and prepare for the onslaught of lingual hacking that I will be unleashing upon the tellers at the bank.  Down a trotting the bank I go, ho-ho a merrieo, I am greeted by the teller. After I hack up my German sentences and looked at from across the teller counter with utter confusion (she was very nice in a German kind of way), I am then given an English speaking teller. I guess I have to work more on my German and English, because I tried to talk to then in both languages, perhaps I should have started to speak in Spanish.

We make some progress and I tell her that I want to set up a withdrawal account with TERROR-MIBILE and she grabs my bills out of my hand and begins to read them to herself and then looks at me and says they have been withdrawing money have thy not. I say no, she looks at the account numbers again and says,  Do they have the have the right account number. BINGO, this is why they have not received payment. She explains to me how to fill out the payment form and that I can not make a payment to TERROR-MOBILE at the bank, because I have all the bill forms, I just have to fill them out and send them to TERROR-MOBILE myself.  Ok so they have the wrong account number, I’ll call them and give them the right number and all will be just…wrong.

I get back home and call TERROR-MOBILE and begin to explain to them the situation and how I would like to give them the correct account number so alles Klar… Everything went well until I am told we would have to pay for the 200 dollar mobile charge.  She explains to me that the company is rude that way. She continues to say the consumer is held responsible for his/her phone and she believes they would take the money out of our account, now that they had the right account number.  I explained to her that the phone was stolen not left somewhere carelessly.  It was in purse that was stolen as we ate dinner. She than ask me if I would like to be connected to billing to try to explain. I say yes and wait.  She returns to the phone and says we have no one that speaks English.  Would you like us to call you back when I find someone that does.  I said,  yes,  and I now wait for their call…not holding my breath.

I call Rene and explain to her what happened and she got upset at me because I gave TERROR-MOBILE the right account number and that was not part of the plan, oh yes, that her and her coworker had set up.  I was livid and said she should have clarified what “the plan” was instead of sending me blind to the wolves without a bit of bacon fat to distract them.  I thought I was doing a good thing by giving TERROR-MOBILE the account number. I thought… well they know the phone was stolen and they know the 200 dollar amount was not us, thus they should not charge us.  I guess they don’t work that way.  Rene and I agreed we would be upset at the system not at each other. TERROR-MOBILE pulled a JediMindTrick on me…jerks.

TERROR-MOBILE: you want to give us your account number

Me: I want to give you our account number

TERROR-MOBILE: You will pay us 200 dollars

ME: We will pay you 200 dollars

I should have said mind tricks don’t work on Mexicans, we invented them… I guess not.  Well, Rene is going to try to get her friend to call TERROR-MOBILE and re-explain the situation and to tell them that we can get a police report if need be…you money sucking jerks! Exactly like that.

THE FOOD:

Chicken and Dumplings

Rene has been asking for this since last week.  I made it last night it was fairly good. I was surprised.

I cooked the chicken in water with garlic, thyme, salt and pepper the previous evening for about four hours until the meat was falling of the bone. Then today I removed the meat from the bone and condensed the chicken broth.  I used the chicken broth to make a nice sauce.

The sauce:

4 table spoons of butter (butter makes everything taste better)3 table spoons of flour , blend together. Then take 1 and 1/2 cups of chicken broth and slowly pour it into the butter/flour mixture making sure it does not clump. Then pour 3/4 cup of heavy cream and begin to stir until it thickens.  Add white or black  pepper to taste.

The dumplings: (taken and modified from a James Beard recipe)

Combine 2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt, make sure it’s all nice and mixed. Then, Mr. Beard says to add 4 table spoons of shortening, but I paused and added parsley, oregano and thyme to the dry mixture and then I added 4 tablespoons of butter, instead of shortening. I cut the butter into little pieces and then I waited a bit to let the butter get soft before blending it together and don’t be afraid to use your hands.  The temperature of your hands will help soften and combine the butter with the dry ingredients.   When all the dry mixture is done you add in 1 cup of milk. Blend it together, it should be quite sticky and should hold it’s shape when you try to make dumplings. If it does not hold it’s shape, there is to much liquid and you need to add a bit more flour to your mixture.

After this I steamed the dumplings on top of the left over chicken broth, you don’t want want to submerge your dumplings, they will fall apart and dissolve.  Steam for about 15 to 17 minutes. You also want to leave enough space between the dumplings because they will expand. I accidently made a giant dumpling which took over two of it’s neighbors when I was steaming the first batch.  I wish I had a picture, it looked crazy, kind of like Mickey Mouse, if Mickey’s mother drank while she was pregnant with him.

I think you can figure out the rest. Arrange the chicken however you like on a plate with the dumplings and then cover with gravy.

Here is another collage of the process.  It should expand.

I really like making collages of the process, it’s way easier to upload onto the blog.

until next time,

M&L