Stolen Interet Fails To Live Up To Expectations, Day Three:

Wednesday

Jun032009

Wednesday, 3 June, 2009 at 2:38 PM

Although the blogging of this saga has lagged behind the resolution thereof, I just have to go ahead and post what I wrote offline. But beware: the Bad Computer Juju? It jumped off my internet access and onto my laptop's AC adapter. You'd better believe I cannot WAIT to tell you all about how that little gem of time-wasting gloriousess played out. Now I'm headed out to drive the 12 miles in some honkin' rain, to meet a really nice Computer Guy who is hopefully going to help me in such a way that I will not, in fact, have to drive back to Greensboro today and get my desktop computer out of storage. Cross your fingers. And read on to learn how spiffingly my Monday went!

Woke far too early for someone who worked until 2. lay there, mind racing over all the things there were to do on this very fine day. Like call Comcast and ask them to pretty please reschedule our original appointment that I couldn't actually make it to town for those other two times. Only this time? Let's just have somebody hook up wireless 'cause I don't need that cable TV bundle after all. Seeing as how I didn't bring an actual TV with me.

I peeked at the wireless icon and saw more yellow. Yes, OH YES! The Magic Internet Spot seemed to be in the middle of my bed, so that's where the work day would be carried out. Somebody was gonna' get a new office. Today, that super-comfy air mattress was gonna' be slid way across the room and my bedroom would become my office!!! Only that's not quite as weird as it sounds. Because my bedroom? It was my grandparents' living room. There's something about the openness, the huge space, the lack of seventies shag carpet - yea, I just like sleeping in here better than rooms where my deceased relatives used to sleep. There. I said it. So the living room would be my office until I could get some legit wifi. Plenty of room for an office AND bedroom in here!

Dear Readers. I had it all planned out. First thing Monday morning, I called to get my own internet hookup. First one call center, then the next, then waiting on hold for a third, then fourth time, only to explain my story again and again to yet a new fresh pair of ears JUST DYING to help me. The best I could understand is that the call centers have recently reallocated their regions and so whereas the first three times I called and got through to helpful people in Knoxville who loved helping me, today's equally gentle-sounding guy in Knoxville just couldn't pull up my account. "Maybe it fell out of the system since we set it up in March?" I offered, hoping to be helpful. Uh, that'd be no. So I transferred around and around, and everyone at Comcast was as helpful as they could be. Only sometimes the people - especially the guy living in Pittsburgh - couldn't quite wrap their brains around how if my mailing address is in one town, the physical address is in quite a different town entirely! And what exactly is this Rural Route business, anyway? What's the name of the street? Uh. Yea. I'm sure there must be a name of this street, if you want to call it a street. I just don't know what it is, okay???!!! YES, I know my grandparents' address. I just gave it to you! But it doesn't have a street name in it. It has Route 3 and a box number! See? He did not see. "What does it say on your mail?" I don't get mail here. But the mail that used to come here? It had the address on it that I already repeated ad nauseum. He could not find my account either.

It occurred to me that this might be what's known as "Karma" in action. Not to mention one of the 10 Commandments strongly indicates that you shoudn't take things you didn't pay for. Only it's not like shoes or cars or stuff. My using the wireless sigal that jumps onto my computer when I turn it on does not keep somebody else from doing the same. Either way, I was starting to feel punished for my failure to deal with this whole New Account Setup Business long ago.

The fouth person hung up on me. I'm convinced he did it on purpose. I used to work in a call center; I know that tone of voice. Trust me on this. So I called my neighbor and begged for help. Any help. What, for example, might the name of this street be? (Looking at it in black and white, it does occur to me just how ludicrous it sounds that a forty year old woman does not know the name of the street on which she's currently residing, but there you have it.) So she told me the name. The name it used to be, and the new name, too. I had never heard either of those names uttered in my entire life. (It made me feel a whole lot better when, later recounting the story on the phone to my dad, he said, "Yea, I seem to recall seeing that name on a sign somewhere around there." Yea, we're a perceptive bunch, we Watsons!)

Once I was armed with lots of data on the street's name and the addresses and phone numbers of other neighbors, I took a deep breath and dialed the original number. Near tears by now, I said to Jeremy, "I'm not sure what I need to tell you. I'm staying in a house in West Virginia that seems very difficult for Comcast to find but I assure you it's here, and I know others nearby who use your service, and I would very much love to have my own internet connection. Can you help me? Please?" Very gently and with the kind of patience usually found only in people like my Daddy, I heard Jeremy say, "Ms. Watson? Of course I can help you! I have your account right in front of me!"

That's when I offered to have Jeremy's babies. Multiple ones of them.

On Wednesday between 11 and 2, I should have my very own internet connection. We're over half-way there. And so far, none of my clients have fired me and I haven't started taking illegal drugs, even! It's a very good week so far...