Gateway: bah humbug

I am having an ongoing fight with Gateway. They are ever so polite, but incompetent...
YOu see, I am a computer freek, and usually can do minor repairs on my computer.

This has not been a problem with previous Dell computers (except for the last phone call, when I freaked out a nice Bengali lady by saying: I took out this part and this is the number of the part, at which she gasped and said YOU CAN"T DO THAT IT"S UNDER WARRANTY"...after which, I got a Texan (or a Bengali with a Texas accent) who laughed, took the credit card information and sent the part.)

But on the Gateway site, you get a "WHAT IS YOUR SERIAL NUMBER AND WHEN DID YOU BUY THE COMPUTER"...
So I email back: This is the part I need, can you send it...
And they politely email back: SEND YOUR SERIAL NUMBER SO WE CAN PROCESS YOUR REQUEST...

and then I email back: THIS IS THE PART I NEED...damn it all, could you send the part?

Then they say: We can't send it to the Philippines, have someone in the USA call us...
So I asked my grandson to do it...and they said: WHAT IS THE SERIAL NUMBER...and we are back to stage one.

Now, like most serial numbers, it is pasted on the bottom of the computer...but unlike most serial numbers, it was not laminated well, so from frequent use is scratched off...and unreadable. The serial number that I put in my palm pocket when it was only partly unlegible doesn't work..

So now I am back to stage one: DAMN IT ALL I JUST WANT THE PART AND I WILL SEND MONEY WHY DO YOU NEED THE SERIAL NUMBER...would you let me talk to a texan who can fix the problem ?

(although I believe gateway now has a service center in Oklahoma, so maybe I should have asked for a fellow Okie.)

Oy veh, now I'll have to go to confession for the sin of verbal aggression...