phones and schaumburg

It is not unlike me to live in a little denial when I know something has gone wrong - I mean wrong enough that it will require either money or time or worse, both. So on Wednesday when the screen of my phone was blank (and I need it to USE the phone), I just hoped that that was a fluke. That would never happen again. But when it happened on Thursday, I finally realized I needed to make a call.
First to Costco - that's where I got the phone. They said call AT&T.
On Friday, I called AT&T. They asked the most obvious question. "Did you drop the phone or did it get wet?" WHAT? Of course not. Who drops their phone while also trying to open the doors to the car? Who leaves their phone near the sink while doing dishes? Not me. That's crazy talk. So they tried to talk me through some blukety bluck but I understood nothing so they said "go to the ATT store on AH Road in AH". OK!
Could I do this over the weekend? No way. But I knew I had time on Monday. A small window of 10-11. So, I drive to the ATT Store today right at 10. They said "well, we don't fix phones here, you will have to go to Schaumburg". SCHAUMBURG???????? I have a small window of time! They never mentioned Schaumburg!! WHAT???? Now if you don't live around here - or even if you do, let me describe my thoughts on Schaumburg. It's the Castelton of Indy, the Kenmore of Cincinnati. It's the Merrillville to the Region. It's a big square of shops and cars and malls and shops and I feel like to go to Schaumburg and get out of there, I need at least 2 hours. Saying that, it's seriously about 10 mintues away. But I am a small town gal and really only operate within the same 4 square miles every day. Nonetheless, I went for it. I made it over to the Schaumburg shop in about 11 mintues. Victory.
I was nervous to go into this " service station" b/c years ago, I had to go to the US Cellular's "service station" and it was the underbelly of all cellular phone users. It was worse than the DMV. But today was lovely - fresh and happy and I was the only customer.
So I have a new phone, was out of there in less than 30 mintues and signed us up for U-Verse. I haven't told that part to Rob yet but I was so overjoyed that my trip to Schaumburg went well and that the people gave me a new phone, I would have bought a car if they were selling one!

Message - Schaumburg isn't really that far and it's not really that overwhelming and I REALLY need to get out more!