LOST AND ADRIFT FOR FOUR DAYS

I have internet -- something I had not had for the past four days!  Four days of no internet,  four days of no television, four days of just me, my wife, the damncat, and NPR on the radio.  We did a lot of reading, a lot of snuggling, and a lot of cursing our cable company.  Somehow we survived.  And like with any survival tale, we are the stronger for it.

We moved into our new apartment on the beginning of the month.  A few days before, we had opened a new account with our cable company and Mr. Cable Man came out and set us up.  All was well and good until Monday when the cable company sent another Mr. Cable Man out to disconnect us.  It seems the previous tenant had filed a cancel order and our sterling cable company decided to honor it well after the fact and mistakenly cut our service.  It took a couple of hours on the phone to figure out what had happened because evidently one cable company hand does not know what the other cable company hand is doing -- or has done.  Anyway, we eventually got a promise the they would send a third Mr. Cable Man out the next day to hook us up again.

The next day came, as did Mr. Cable Man #3, who told us that reconnecting us would onlny take a few minutes.  Except it didn't.  Mr. Cable Man #3 and Ms. Telephone Technical Support Lady could not do it and Ms. Telephone Technical Support Lady just didn't know why the cable company computer (whose name, I'm sure, is HAL 9000) wouldn't reinstall our service.  After a couple of hours, Ms. Telephone Technical Support Lady got ahold of her supervisor who also seemed to have no luck with their recalcitrant computer.  A couple more hours went by and Mr. Cable Man #3, phone glued to his ear, kept going out to our walkway and muttering things to the phone, then nodding his head, then muttering some more.  Finally he said he had to go to another appointment just down the street and he would be back and, if managed to resolve the problem in the meanwhile, he would call and let us know, and off he went.  He did not come back and he did not call and we were still without service.  I called the cable company again and, after a confusing hour or so on the phone, I was told that their computer was fixing the problem but that it would take overnight to do that (?) and that I have service the next day.

They lied.  The next day came and no service.  I called again, using my adult voice (stern, but not threatening and with no swear words).  After an hour, I was told, yes, for some reason the computer did need the night to resolve the problem (who knew computers, like people, needed a good night's sleep to function properly?) and now they could schedule Mr. Cable Guy #4 to come out the next afternoon to hook us up.  And why not today?  Well, they weren't allowed to schedule an appoinmene until the computer had fixed things, they said, and dispatch just said this was the earliest they could do it because others were already in the queue.  And why were we bumped to the end of the queue when we've been in the queue for the past three days because of your error? I asked.  Because that's what dispatch said, I was told, in a voice that indicated that dispatch's word was sacrosanct.  That's unacceptable I said (several times over the next few minutes) and was basically told (repeatedly) that you don't mess with dispatch.  Grrr.

So yesterday afternoon we got a call from Mr. Cable Man #4 who said he could hook us up from the outside box, easy peasy, and he did not need to come in the house.  An hour later, still no cable.  I looked outside and there was a confused Mr. Cable Man #4.  He couldn't find the outside box.  Mr. Cable Man #2 had found easliy enough when he cut our service without informing us, I said.  Anyway Mr. Cable Man #4 came in and looked at our modem which seemed to indicate it was wroking -- except that it wasn't -- and got on the phone with Ms. Telephone Technical Support Lady #2 and they had a jolly old time figuring out what was going on.  The HAL 9000 was playing some sort of trick on all of us.  More time went by and Mr. Cable Man #4 went out to our walkway, phone glied to his ear and muttering and nodding and muttering.  After a few minutes, the cable went on.  We had televesion and internet again, huzzah!  Mr. Cable Man #4 came back in and we thanked him for getting our service back, at which he looked direly perplexed.  It's on? he said, I didn't do anything.  And he hadn't.  But we had the service somehow and was not about to complain (again).  Evidently the Cable God looked down on us and smiled.  (I had previously offered to sacrifice a goat if that would help; Mr. Cable God must have heard that and, like with when Isaac was ready to sacrifice his son, my willingness was proof enough of my piety and an actual sacrifice was not necessary.)  Anyway, Mr. Cable Guy #4 and Ms Technical Support Lady #2 spent another ten minutes of so trying to figure out what happened and they couldn't so he left and she hung up.

After four long days, I'm back, baby!