Suzy Says

Of the many words used to describe me, “patient” has never been one of them. But living in the country seems to require patience, along with rubber boots, fleece, and a tolerance for bugs (so far, I don’t have any of these, either).

Of the many things that either don’t work or sort of work, the worst, to my citified mind, is the internet. I want it to work swiftly and speedily at all times, instead of sluggishly and unreliably some of the time. I want a week to go by without having to call tech support. I want tech support to be in the US of A, instead of Indiah. I want the tech support people to know what they’re doing. It would be a bonus if we could actually understand each other, too.

Yesterday, I spent an hour and a half of the rapidly dwindling remains of my lifespan on the phone with a guy who called himself Jimmy, but who sounded exactly like Apu on the Simpsons. I seriously considered offering his god a peanut as time dragged on and my internet still refused to work. Finally, Apu decided that I would need a technician to come out and try and figure out what was wrong.

Someone was supposed to call me within 48 hours to set up the appointment, which would cost $36. Hmmm, let’s review: I’m paying for at least three days of no service, plus an extra fee so they can figure out why I’m not getting service? Riiiight.

I took my trusty little iBook over to my brother’s place to borrow a cup of internet. It was a good thing I did, since I had some emails from my boss asking me to do some things, which I did while the bees buzzed and the sun shone in the background.

The prospect of no internet was so horrifying that when I got home, I started fiddling around with the various blinking objects, unplugging things and plugging them back in. The desktop computer came back to life, but my iBook had an IP configuration problemo, necessitating yet another call to the far East. After another half hour of trying to explain what was wrong, Apu 2.0 told me I had to call the router provider to get the IP address fixed – even though the destruction of the IP address was caused by all the numbers the earlier Apu had had me type into my system preferences on the first call.

I called the router people, who are also thinly disguised Apus, and they told me I had to call the internet service provider.

I threw the phone across the room.

Later, when I had recovered sufficiently, I unpacked the hub thing my brother bought me the last time he was in Santa Rosa, and tried connecting both computers to it. It worked, though I now have cables snaking down from the loft and through the living room.

I steeled myself to call Apu and tell him that the house call was no longer required, and got a confirmation number. Then I made a drink. Or two.

This morning, I was heading into the icy embrace of the shower (I do have a nice view of the back yard from there, though) when the phone rang. It was a guy who actually could have convincingly called himself Jimmy, asking to set up an appointment to come and fix the internet.