Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Never mind the tomatoes, the modem's fried.

I was afraid I wasn't going to be here tonight. I was this close to texting E and saying, "Help. Can't update, can you fill in." Fortunately I didn't have to and here I am, waiting to drive you all crackers.

It all started late Saturday. The cable modem started blinking on & off. The row of little lights sending out Morse code instead of four steady beacons. Not a good sign. Then the high-speed broadband turned into a snail's dance on a narrow blade of grass. And on Sunday... poof. With a sizzle and a flash it died. Completely. Not even a flicker.

OMG No internet!!

Of course there was nobody at the cable company on Sunday. And phoning at 6.30 Monday morning didn't help much either. Yes, that message which said the office would be open at 8am really did mean 8am. No, there wasn't going to be some dedicated soul turning up for work two hours early just so I could speak to them.

I don't think I'd realised prior to this how dependent I am on the damn' thing. Scary. But there are so many friends that I keep in contact with online, and my blog, and facebook, it was a little worrying how lost I was without it.

When the office finally opened (at 8am just as they'd said it would) the nice man seemed to understand the near-panic at the thought of not having internet and he promised to despatch a replacement modem immediately. Cynic that I am I interpreted "immediately" to mean "some time this week" and resigned myself to the wait. It didn't mean that I wasn't hoping though. I got home from work today and checked at once. Nope, no deliveries. Not even a letter. Damn. Ok - coffee first then contact Elisa & Tamara, I thought. I put the coffee machine on and watched morosely as it filtered through. It had just about finished when there was a knock on the door. It was the lady from next door, carrying a box. She explained that the delivery man had left the parcel with her because it needed a signature.

The modem!! I could have kissed her except that her husband would probably take exception to that and he's a hell of a lot bigger than me. So I contented myself with thanking her profusely and plying her with coffee.

An hour-hour-and-a-half and two telephone calls to the cable company later and the 'net was back. Happy dance.

Now all I have to do is catch up with the one-hundred-and-sixty or so emails that turned up while I was gone. I'll do that while you get reading - there's tonnes of stuff for you to read.

Ze

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