Ransom, in CS Lewis' Out of the Hidden Planet, sits upstairs on about page 60 awaiting my nap. He is muddling around in a sticky world where things vaguely remind him of things he knows, but they don't work the same way at all. The language is logical, but has to be carefully taught before it can be used to communicate. Beings come into the story which are unreadable, and thus terrifying. Some turn out to be benign, some are actually friendly and helpful, but none of them are like anything "normal" and the landscape is of strange colors, shapes and consistencies. Ransom moves through agonies of being frightened, then relieved, benumbed, homesick, happy, curious, aggressive -- one follows on another in spades. It's exhausting enough that usually one chapter is enough to make me need to rest my eyes.
I have spent two days online muddling around in the alien territory called Paypal. Some time ago I angrily zapped my account with them out of existence (except they did keep records-- see following.)
I heeded a hint from my daughter's birthday wish list and bought something that could only be paid to a UK merchant through Paypal, so I found myself on the phone with them trying to find out why I could not log on. They are a huge company. Crooks have famously used their name to send fraudulent emails to people coaxing financial account numbers and such from them. The Paypal people have covered themselves with such a thick blanket of security locks and keys that one can just barely make it through to sort it out.
Amazing Fact: PAYPAL DOES NOT USE A TOLL FREE NUMBER FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE! (maybe they are on the outs with the phone company.)
They dug up my old info and agreed to set me up anew based on a card I had previously registered. I had to go through a list of possible last-four-numbers before they identified the card I had used! (Now I think I will have to get that number changed to feel comfortable about this.) Then I could not change my password. The email with the necessary link would not appear in my email.
Obviously I am again embittered and will zap them again from my life. After twice sitting for some long chunks of time waiting for the automated system to get finished telling me how much my call meant to them and advertising their services, I got a meek "agent" (ADVICE: If you call, just say "agent" at the earliest opportunity and you can skip a lot of options listings) who politely did everything possible to get me back in business, but still could not send me the necessary emails even though I had given a correct email address.
"Oh, we have had some trouble with our email service getting through the past few days." WHAT?
In short, their emails were going to my delete box, like spam. I guess my ISP is sick of them too. I didn't block them, but someone did. I finally got it fixed by reading the email in my deleted box, but I am not ok about all this. Not at all!
I'm like Ransom-- stuck on an alien planet where nothing works like anything I know. And I need to keep from being sent to the "non-pay" bad list. So I have to somehow navigate myself out of the puzzle and stay alive without knowing the language. A nightmare!
Thank you, CS Lewis, for making this sort of funny, in an exasperating way. You are a good man. Ransom is waiting by my bed ready for my nap, and I am ready too.
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