Amazon, final chapter..

Just when I thought I would forever be labelled by Amazon a purveyor of vile profanity (see posts on 16th Jan, 'I beg your pardon!'; 18th Jan, 'Amazon'; and 25th Jan, 'Amazon, Chapter Three'), I received a follow-up call from the supervisor who had tried so valiantly and so hopelessly on Tuesday to help with my problem of how to update my Amazon profile without being so labelled.

First, he asked whether I had had any luck myself. 'No,' I said.'I still get the same message: "The text you entered may not contain profanity"'.

'Well,' he said, 'I have heard back from the technicians. It seems you have been getting a misleading error message.'

'You mean it should have said, 'The text you entered may not contain profanity after all?'

That one, which I'd been rehearsing in case he should call, went right by him. He said, 'What the computer means is that the text you entered my not contain any URLs.'

'That's completely different. Why didn't the computer just say so?'

'The message is automatic, but the computer is talking about URLs. I looked at the text you are trying to upload, and there are several URLs in it.'

'Well yes there are, but they've been there for years and it's the first time the computer has complained about it.'

'I'm afraid I don't know why that is. The rules are updated all the time. If you take out the URLs I'm sure it will be fine.'

'If I take out the URLs and put in something profane, do you think I'll be told the text entered may not contain URLs? It sounds like a glitch the technicians should be made aware of!'

Actually, I didn't say that last thing. I just said, 'Well thanks so much for calling back, and I'll try uploading the text without the URLs and see what happens.'

'I'm sure it will be fine. Mike, have a very good day.'

I must admit, I tried stripping down the URLs by taking out the www and saying, for example, thebluecabin.com, but obviously the computer also knows which way the stick floats (you have to have read yesterday's post), because it came back with, 'The text you entered may not contain profanity' one last time.

So I took out the .coms and the .co.uks, and the computer came back with, 'That wasn't so hard, now was it?' Actually it didn't say that. It said, 'The changes to your profile have been saved.'

It's the one time when I would have appreciated that most ubiquitous of confirmation messages: 'Congratulations! You have successfully updated your profile!'

Good old Amazon. We're best friends now that I know they don't really think I'm using bad words.