There are days when I worry about the status of intelligent life on this planet.

I have a Gateway laptop. It’s OK. Not great, but it gets the job done. Last week while I was putting the laptop in my bag a CD in a paper sheath slid between the lid and the body of the laptop and popped the “\” key off the keyboard. After muttering a few dark things about weak-ass construction I dropped a line to Gateway tech support and requested they fix it. After confirming my street address twice and asking for an on-site repair, they said they’d fix it. Cool.

So I get to my desk this afternoon after running some lunchtime errands to find a suspiciously keyboard-shaped UPS box on my desk. Hmm. Must be hard to fit an on-site tech in there, thinks I. Sure enough, opening the box reveals a disembodied laptop keyboard, a packing slip and a short form letter saying, “Please find enclosed the part that you requested along with easy-to-read installation instructions.”

Except there were no instructions. Nor was there the promised on-site support technician to install it.

Oh, and did I mention that the keyboard in the box already had its “Alt” key broken off of it inside the packaging?

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