I apologize for not posting anything on here last week, but the fact that this winter nearly has beaten everything around here (especially me) to within an inch of its life is the main reason why.
Forget the fact I did so much snow shoveling in a three-week period, my fingers now are permanently curled into a position that keeps me fully prepared to grab a shovel and run outside whenever the need arises. The actual reason why I couldn’t post a blog last week is because one of the 2,300 snowstorms we’ve had so far this winter killed my Internet satellite dish…and as of this writing, it’s still resting in peace.
Where I live, cell-phone reception is so weak, I have to stand out in the middle of the road and dodge oncoming trucks just to get half a bar for a signal. Therefore, I own only a very basic cell-phone that does nothing but allow me to make and receive calls. So I carry it with me in case of an emergency, such as if I were out driving and an escaped, rampaging bull attacked my car. Other than that, it’s pretty useless. So that leaves me only an old-fashioned landline and my Internet satellite hookup for communication with the outside world while I’m at home.
As of February 26th, however, the Internet’s satellite dish, located on the very peak of my roof and aimed at the Milky Way, finally raised the white flag and shouted, “I’ve had enough of being buried up to my transceiver in snow out here in the wind and sub-zero temperatures 24 hours a day, freezing my bolts off, just for you! So I’m turning in my official resignation, effective immediately!”
They say you never realize what you’ve got until it’s gone…but believe me, I realized it right away…and panicked. No Internet? How was I supposed to check my auctions on Ebay? My book sales on Amazon? My current standing against my competition on Klondike Solitaire? My bank balances?
And worst of all, how was I supposed to listen to my favorite song 25 times a day?
But because my Internet service never has been reliable up here in the wilderness anyway, I told myself to just calm down and be patient, that it would come back, as it always had in the past. Sometimes it took only a few minutes. Other times, a few hours. But it always came back.
Except this time.
The next day, after the longest 24 hours in the history of mankind, I suspected I was in big trouble when I turned on my laptop and a pop-up on the screen said, “Sorry, no Internet. Try again.” So I tried again…and again…and then again. Finally, I took a deep breath in an effort to emotionally prepare myself to face what I knew from experience was about to be the worst torture any human being ever should be forced to endure.
I had to call my Internet provider and ask for technical support.
As I sat there on hold, I prayed for strength and courage…but most of all, patience, especially when the recorded message informed me the company had a zero-tolerance policy for rude behavior or inappropriate language directed toward its employees.
That, of course, made me wonder why they needed to even play that sort of a message in the first place. I mean, how often did customers go off on them…and why? My heart began to palpitate.
I wasn’t surprised when I finally was connected with an actual human and I barely could understand his thick accent. I explained to him that I’d had no Internet for the past 24 hours, not even a flicker, and yes, I had checked the connections, unplugged the modem to reboot the system, and even replaced the Ethernet cable with a brand new one (I keep a supply in my desk, solely for that purpose). Despite that, he had me repeat the steps all over again, which involved moving the sofa away from the wall because there, for whatever reason, was where the company installed my modem’s cable 15 years ago.
When there still was no signal, after he’d instructed me do everything short of a spiritual dance to make it return, he then uttered the words every corpuscle in my body had been dreading to hear: “We will have to send a technician to your home, Miss Sally, to determine the problem. And you will be expected to pay the service fee of $95.”
I wanted to point out that I had been renting the equipment from them for over 15 years, to the tune of nearly $3,000, so why should I have to pay a fee if it failed? But I remembered their zero-tolerance policy and held my tongue, mainly because I was so desperate. “How soon will someone be here?” was all I said.
“Do not worry, I will write this up as an emergency so you will not have to be inconvenienced for very long. Please hold for two minutes while I schedule your appointment.”
As I waited, I had the feeling that because it was Friday, no one was going to show up until Monday, which made me feel panicky all over again. How would I survive the weekend? What if someone bought one or, heaven forbid, ALL of my items on Ebay? How would I even know?
Finally, the technician returned. “Do you have any means of writing?” he asked. “Please take down this information.”
I grabbed a pen and waited.
“Your appointment has been set for March 5th between the hours of 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM, he said. "Will you be available then?”
I was too stunned to respond. “A whole week away?” I finally blurted out. “Do you really consider that an emergency appointment?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“You don’t have anything sooner?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“But I can’t go that long without the Internet! I work from home! What am I supposed to do?”
“I apologize,” he said. "But you must wait."
Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling extremely cheerful or optimistic after the call ended. The thought of waiting a week for a technician to arrive felt like an eternity. And almost immediately I was bored. After all, in addition to checking my items on Ebay and my books on Amazon, I had a daily schedule to keep – online chats with my friends, watching videos and influencers online, researching highly important information on Google, and playing Scrabble against the formidable robot named Finn on Pogo. How was I going to survive? What would I do to occupy my time during those long, cold winter days and nights? Clean my house? Lord, no.
 |
| The path to the propane tank after only the first storm |
So after each storm, there I was, shoveling the equivalent of the Appalachian Trail out to that darned propane tank.
And then there was the plow guy I’d hired online, sight unseen, who, because I couldn’t afford his “deluxe” package (or anyone else's regular package), plowed only one side of my driveway after each storm. As he left the driveway, he would lift up the plow on the other side and not plow it. So I had to shovel that side myself. I mean, he already was there, so would it have killed him to put the plow back down on his way out?
Probably. Because chivalry is dead. And if this winter's weather continues for much longer, I'm pretty sure I will be, too.
Anyway, on March 4th, the day before the technician was scheduled to arrive, another snowstorm swooped in and dumped five more inches. I received a voice mail from the Internet company, reminding me of my appointment and emphasizing that my driveway should be cleared well enough to allow their truck easy access to my house.
As luck would have it, my plow guy ghosted me. Even worse, my only communication with him since I hired him had been through Facebook messaging. I didn’t even have a phone number so I could call to ask him if he was buried under a snow bank somewhere. So, without thinking, I reached for my laptop to see if I could dig up a phone number for him.
“Sorry, no Internet. Try again.”
Old habits die hard.
I didn’t dare chance waiting for the plow guy any longer, so I grabbed my trusty shovel and headed outdoors. I didn’t care if the technician arrived the next morning to find my frostbitten, lifeless body lying in the middle of the driveway – just as long as he fixed my Internet.
At 10:00 the next morning, the day I had been anticipating for what seemed like 100 years, the technician phoned and said he would be arriving earlier than planned. “I should be there in about a half-hour. Is that okay with you?” he asked.
Okay?! Was he kidding? If I knew how to do cartwheels, I’d have done a string of them across the kitchen floor at that moment. I had expected him to be late, making me sit and wait all day, as most of the repair people usually did, so I didn’t hesitate to tell him the earlier he arrived, the better.
At 10:30, I made a quick dash outside to salt the ice on my walkway because I wanted to make certain the technician remained upright long enough to repair whatever needed to be repaired. When I came back inside, I saw I had a message flashing on my answering machine. It was the Internet provider, saying the technician had been delayed and would have to reschedule the appointment, so to please call them back to set up another date and time!
What the…?! I just stood there, my mouth hanging open. The “early” technician suddenly had been delayed to the point where he couldn’t even make it for the appointment at all? What on earth had happened after he called me? Plenty of visions popped into my head at that point…all of which would have felt right at home in a Stephen King movie.
I was snapped back to reality when my doorbell rang.
Puzzled, I answered it to find a tall, husky guy standing there. “Hi!” he said. “I’m here to check out your satellite system. I understand you have no Internet access?”
I stared at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head, which probably made him think I’d taken too much medication or something.
What happened next was totally bizarre…
(Sorry, but a very kind friend is letting me borrow his Starlink-Mini portable satellite-kit to get online, so I will have to post this now and continue with the rest of the story next week! Until then, wish me luck. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it, mainly because, and I hesitate to admit it...I did end up violating the company’s zero-tolerance policy! 😉).
# # #
