Living in the land of confusion

Sometimes living in Okinawa makes me want to pull out my hair.

Benny asked me to take care of one thing for the duplex: getting the AFN satellite dish and decoder so he can watch Twins baseball at 7 a.m. on Sundays. Locate a satellite dish, sign some paperwork and take it back to the house. Sounds simple, right? It's been a two-day process and it's still not installed.

The Navy people here told us that we can get a free satellite. The only cost is hiring a local cable guy to come to the house to install it on the patio, which is estimated to cost $120.

Yesterday I went to a building on base with the sign: Cable TV. That wasn't right. That office is where people who live on base pay for expanded cable service.

Armed Forces Network (AFN) is a free basic cable service for military service members and their families. There is a couple of channels, such as a sports-only channel and a family-broadcasting channel. I usually want to watch the news-only channel, while Benny prefers the sports one. My favorite is the movie channel. But you can also see sitcoms and reality shows from the States. But it is usually reruns from the last season, so I've been catching up the first season of Ugly Betty when we lived at the motel on base.

Back to the cable TV office. They told me I need to go to the exchange's customer service counter. The exchange is code for on-base department store. The person at the customer service counter sent me to the electronics department.

There was a whole bunch of unhelpful store managers and workers for more than 45 minutes before I was told that they needed my credit card. I was being charged $275 for the satellite dish and decoder box. Before that moment, I was annoyed. At that moment, I was pissed off.

Pay $275? What? Why would I buy a AFN dish? What am I suppose to do with this dish when I leave Okinawa? Really? Buy it? You want me to pay $275, which included a $13 a month fee to rent the decoder box, so I can watch commercials about the military? and I still need to pay $120 to have it installed at our duplex. I thought I can get this for free. I might as well get a expanded cable package from a company in town.

When presented with this reaction, the sales associate shrugged and asked if I wanted to talk to the manager for the second time.

I talked to the manager about returning the dish. All sales are final.

Well, in that case, I'm done. I tell the associate that I need to think about it.

I tell Benny about the situation. We are both confused about why we have to buy the satellite dish.

This morning Benny calls me with clarifying information from the Navy people in his office. Yes, there is a free dish, I have to pick it up at the Navy base. There isn't a warehouse for them on the Air Force base. These two bases are across the street from each other.

So after going to the wrong building and failing to locate the front door for the satellite building, the dish was put inside of Favre this afternoon. I barely made it there in time though. The office that handles this service closes at 2 p.m. daily.

I'm still slightly annoyed with this whole situation. Why is the exchange selling dishes to people when they can get it for free? Why?

When I asked the military satellite loaner person this exact question, he laughed, shrugged and said that he bought one before he knew he could get it for free.

Sigh.

Welcome to the land of confusion.