By now maybe you’ve seen the commercials Verizon has been airing that they’ll beat AT&T’s deals, blah blah blah.

Back before those were omnipresent we got something in the mail that as Fios customers we were eligible for a good deal if we switched to Verizon for our cell service.

We thought it was worth considering - especially since we might get some free stuff out of it.

We went to Verizon on a Saturday morning in early December to explore and - well, I guess if you know me you know this wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to.

I go into these things expecting something will go wrong anyway…so it’s a high bar to pass to walk out of there feeling good about things.

We ended up with a very nice sales rep, but unfortunately he needed to bring in another guy for help at one point.

That’s where things went wrong.

It turned out we were able to get a new iPhone for everyone - and an Apple Watch, which I can now reveal, since it is after Christmas - and our plan, which the first sales guy was totally on board with, was to just wait until Christmas to give the phones to everyone and then activate everything.

But apparently Verizon can’t do that…which we learned later.

So we left there (after too long of a time, which should have been our first warning), cautiously optimistic that things had gone relatively smoothly…and then everyone started to lose their cell service.

We thought (hoped?) that was just the service switching from AT&T…but it kept up for a little too long.

Kathy looked it up and decided there was a problem.

Not only were we without service, but the big problem was our daughter in South Carolina had no phone service now.

So Kathy went to the store again and spent another way too long amount of time there (this was the weekend I was painting the stairwell and I was mid-coat…but it was probably for the best that I didn’t go back anyway), and they gave us a temporary fix.

Two of us had to switch phones immediately, but we got South Carolina back up and running.

After she returned we told everybody about the phones, ruining what would have been a fun Christmas morning surprise for everyone.

Unfortunately if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

I mean, we’re paying less for cell phone service…but it certainly came at a cost.

Verizon screwed up our Christmas.

I do have a new phone, though, a little ahead of schedule. My old one was starting to lose battery life, so it’s come at a nice time for me. (Everyone except one of my daughters was really due for an upgrade.)

It’s been fun exploring what the new phone can do…

But I still would have rather had a fun Christmas surprise.