"When it
rains, it pours" is an old saying that means one problem often can be
followed by many more, all within a short period of time. I remember first
seeing those words printed on the Morton salt containers decades ago, to
indicate that when the weather is damp, their salt still freely flows and
doesn't clump.
I, for one,
can attest to the fact their salt does indeed clump, because Morton is the
brand I've been using for years, and more than once, especially during humid
weather, I've had to bang the salt shaker like a gavel before any salt came out
of it.
But I
digress...
My “when it
rains, it pours” week began on December 8th, when I went to the local post
office to mail some Christmas cards, a package and my all-important check for
$6,100 to the town for my half-year property-tax payment. The town hall is only
one street away from the post office and although I could have gone over there
and paid my tax in person, the lines usually are so long, I decided to just
drop the payment into the mail slot inside the post office. I wasn’t concerned
because the payment wasn't due until December 15th, so there still was plenty
of time for it to reach its destination.
Two days
later, my visit to the P.O. came back to haunt me. I woke up feeling less than
perky – a stuffy head and nose, sore throat, headache and a voice that sounded
like that of a 13-year-old boy going through puberty. I hadn't been anywhere
other than to the post office, so that, I deduced, was where the germs must
have mercilessly attacked me.
I planned to
rest, stay warm and drink plenty of fluids so I could shake whatever it was as
quickly as possible. But when I turned on my laptop to check my e-mail and
messages later that morning, I was informed I had no Internet connection. That
wasn't unusual, however, as my Internet is controlled by a satellite dish with
a signal so unreliable, a bird flapping its wings in front of it can affect it.
But usually if I wait, the service will return in about 15 minutes.
Alas, by that
night, there still was no Internet, so I decided to call the provider to find
out why. I picked up my phone – my trusty old landline, which is the only type
of phone that comes in up in the Forest Primeval where I live – and it was
dead. No dial tone, no static, nothing. Just plain dead.
The Internet
and the landline are two totally separate entities and neither one affects the
other, so what, I wondered, was going on? Why would they both decide to go on
strike at the same time? A Martian takeover?
Being sick
made me feel even more apprehensive. What if I suddenly became so ill, I needed
help? How would I get it? Send up a flare?
So I dug out
my rarely used cell phone...a flip phone. It's rarely used because anywhere
within the walls of my house it gets zero bars, no signal at all. That night,
the wind chill was minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit, but the only place where I knew
I could get a signal of almost one whole bar was halfway up my driveway. So I
bundled up in warm clothing, grabbed a small flashlight and headed out
there.
When I called
the phone company, I had to remove my gloves to punch in all of the "press
one, press two, enter the phone number you wish to have repaired, enter your
zip code, enter your PIN" instructions before I actually reached a
human. By then, my hands were so cold, I was pretty sure my fingers would crack
and shatter into pieces if I had to move them again.
Unfortunately,
things only got worse from there.
"Do us a
favor and check the outside NID box attached to your house," the
tech-department employee advised me. "It should be next to your electric
meter. Unscrew the door on it and then take one of your phones outside and plug
it into the test jack inside the box. Then call me back and tell me if you hear
a dial tone out there."
So I went back into the house, thawed out for a few minutes, unplugged one of my phones and headed outside with it. Once again, I couldn't wear gloves while I was unscrewing the door on the box and plugging in the phone line...as I held the flashlight between my teeth. It took six tries before I finally was able to bend my fingers enough to fit the little plastic connector tip into the jack.
There was no
dial tone out there either. Everything was dead...and I found myself suddenly
thinking I would be next...from hypothermia.
But I still had
to call back the phone company, which meant standing out in the driveway with
my cell phone and going through punching in all of the "press this"
numbers once again.
The employee
said, "Okay, then it's apparently an outside problem with the lines, not your
problem, so you won't be charged for the repair and you won't have to be
home when the technician arrives. We'll send someone up there as soon as
possible. Now please write down this ticket number for the repair."
"I don't
have a pen or paper," I said, as my voice became more laryngitic by the
minute. I wasn’t sure if it was from the bug I’d caught or if my vocal chords
had frozen.
"Pardon
me?" she asked.
"I'm
standing outside in the dark in sub-zero weather at the moment because it's the
only place where I can get any reception on this cell phone," I explained.
"Oh, I'm
sorry! No problem then. Is this a good number to call you back on when we need
to reach you?"
I would have
rolled my eyes, but they also were frozen by then. "The odds are pretty
slim I actually will be standing out here in the driveway to receive the call
when and if you try," I said, trying my best not to sound too sarcastic.
The problem is, when I’m sick, I rapidly transform into Sally the Sourpuss, who
has little or no patience.
"OK,” she
said. “Then when your phone is repaired, I'll have the technician knock on your
door and let you know it's all set."
"Um, if
he's going to let me know that my phone is repaired, then why doesn't he just
call me on that phone?" I asked. "Hearing it ring should be a pretty
good indication to me that it's working."
"Oh...
right," she said.
"So when
can I expect to have my phone service back?" I asked.
"Right
now, we're looking at the 17th," she said.
"A
week?" I squeaked in disbelief. "That's the soonest someone can get
here?"
"Afraid
so," she said.
Desperate, I
tossed everything I could think of at her to convince her to speed things up:
I'm a widow, I'm sick, I have no other means of communication, and what if I
need an ambulance or the fire department? What if the bodies in the graveyard
down the road rise up and become the Walking Dead and surround my house?
"I'll try
to get someone out there sooner," she said. "But there's really not
much I can do, considering the shortage in the number of workers we currently
have."
Fortunately,
the Internet returned, so I felt less vulnerable. At least I had some form of
communication again, via my laptop, which was better than nothing.
But with the
return of the Internet also came something even more disturbing than having no
phone. By the 14th, my $6,100 check for my property tax still hadn't been
cashed and my tax, according to the town's online kiosk, still was marked as
unpaid. If I didn't pay it by the next day, the 15th, I would be
considered late and get hit with a penalty of eight percent! What on earth, I
wondered, could have happened to a check that was mailed six days ago to a
place only one street away from the post office? Upset, I grabbed the phone to
call the town hall.
The phone that
still was dead, of course.
So I sent an
e-mail instead, asking if maybe the tax collector had received my payment and
just hadn't processed it yet, or if I should contact the P.O. to track it.
Or even worse,
pay $30 to put a stop-payment on the check.
I once again
checked my online bank account to see if maybe the check had been cashed. Not
yet. But when I further studied my accounts, I noticed something else of
concern. It said that my paper statements had been mailed on the 3rd (I like
the paper ones because I shove them into my income-tax folder – also, my
printer is broken so I can't print out anything myself) but I hadn't received
them yet. Again, in a panic, I grabbed the phone...but only because I wanted to
hurl it through the nearest window at that point.
So I sent an
e-mail to the bank and asked for any information they could provide about where
my paper statements might be. The response came back quickly and was obviously
AI generated.
"Thank
you for informing us about losing your statements. We understand your concerns.
We have turned your message over to our fraud resolution team for your
protection, and they will put a hold on your accounts until this matter is
settled."
"Nooo!"
I shouted at my laptop in a voice that came out sounding like an eagle's during
mating season. "You can't put a hold on my accounts! What about my
automatic payments coming up? What about the Christmas shopping I still have to
do?"
So once again, I got dressed in five layers of clothing and along with my cell phone, waddled out to the driveway – this time, to call the bank. By the time I finished being on hold and was forced to listen to pre-recorded sales pitches for every product the bank currently offered (and even a few they didn't), I was pretty sure I had turned into a human popsicle. Even worse, the guy I spoke with sounded as if he kept dozing off during our conversation. His voice reminded me of an old 45-rpm vinyl record being played on the 33-rpm speed.
"Well-l-l-l-l-l...you
also can see your statements online," he said, when I mentioned I was
missing my paper statements. "Just print them out."
He obviously
didn't seem nearly as concerned about the missing statements as the
AI-generated e-mail had.
"I can't
print anything," I said, "My printer isn't working. But please, just
take the hold off my accounts, okay?"
"Let me
check," he said.
He put me on
hold for five minutes. By then, my cell phone was frozen to the side of my
head.
"There's
no hold on your accounts," he finally returned and said, yawning. "At
least not yet."
By then, I was
so desperate to get back inside my warm house while I still was able to move my
joints, I just hung up.
And I hate to
admit it, but I later did something only a desperate person would do. I
responded to the bank's previous AI e-mail with a lie.
"No need
to have your fraud resolution team put a hold on my accounts,” I wrote. “I
called customer service and everything was straightened out and is just fine
now. Thank you."
The reply
said, "Thank you for informing us. We will forward your message to fraud
resolution."
I honestly no
longer care where my statements are. I figure they probably will show up in
March sometime. That was when the Christmas card I sent last year to one of my
friends who lives only 20 miles away finally reached her.
The town hall
didn't answer my e-mail concerning my missing tax check, but on Monday night,
the 15th, I logged into the town's tax kiosk online at about 9:00 PM for the 20th time that day,
and my tax bill suddenly popped up as being paid. The check still hadn't been
cashed, but at least I finally knew it had reached the town hall and they’d
probably just been ignoring it all week. My e-mail must have forced them to go
search for it.
Meanwhile,
whatever bug I caught was feeling worse (can't imagine why). The Covid test
came back negative, though, so I guess that was good news.
And the
telephone repairman showed up early Monday morning, the 15th...twice. The
second time, I saw him standing out there, frowning at the phone box and
scratching his head. Not too reassuring. And then he just drove off.
I still had no
phone that night, so I thought I should contact the phone company again and ask
them what was up, especially after they sent me an online survey to fill out
about my degree of satisfaction. I mean, did they think everything was all set?
But the more I
thought about calling, the more I felt too crummy to bother. I was in no mood
to go stand out in the driveway during the deep-freeze again, not unless it was
for something a lot more important, like finding out I'd just been named the
big winner of Wheel of Fortune's Secret Santa contest and had only 24 hours to
claim my cash prize.
Then Tuesday
afternoon, I finally heard the most glorious sound I'd heard in a long time.
The dial tone.
So now I'm
hoping to rest, relax and pamper myself so I'll be feeling fine by
Christmas. No longer having to stand shivering with my cell phone out in the driveway during
sub-freezing weather just might help my recovery a bit.
And if not,
then at least I'll have my newly repaired phone to use when I get the urge to
call one of my friends and whine.
# # #
WISHING A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF MY READERS!
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