Dude was having a bit of a day...

Can I just say that if you want to meet with some...interesting people...you should call your local cable internet provider and have them send someone to your house.

We had originally planned to forgo internet service because we are unemployed and CHEAP.  But when I informed my client (I have a long-term editing client that is finishing her dissertation and feeling a little...unraveled) that I would have limited internet access she offered an advance and a big, fat, obvious hint that I should get internet access NOW as she was going to want to be able to reach me at all times.

So we did.  We got a decent deal on the first 12 months and hopefully by the time we have to renew our contract we'll have more than my little freelance operation to fund us.

Chris called and scheduled a time for the Time Warner guy to come out and install a modem and connect us to the internet.  Can I just say that I'm pretty sure the guy was "new" and to say that he was having a bit of a day is maybe an understatement. 

It started off with he couldn't find us, and then he did find us but he was late.  Now, Chris HATES dealing with these people, it doesn't matter who the provider is, or where we happen to be located, he has a deep and abiding distrust for all internet providers and installers so starting off lost and late was not the best beginning.

I was working, working, working, on my laptop and hiding in our bedroom through most of this, but Chris vented to me A LOT so I'm pretty sure I know what's going on.

The guy fiddled with his phone the entire time, he seemed to be text messaging or checking some other data of some sort on his little touch-screen telephonic device.  He installed the modem, he called someone, no idea who and whoever it was it wasn't with Time Warner, and they assured him that he did NOT need to call Time Warner.  He walked around outside quite a bit, he came back IN and lounged on our living room carpet waiting for the modem to work.  He asked to borrow Chris' phone because his had "died."  Chris was nice and hoping to expedite the situation so he loaned it to him.  After TWO HOURS I kicked him out.

I realize in retrospect I shouldn't have done that.

Anyway, I was just desperate to have him OUT of my house.  I needed to feed my child lunch and put him down for a nap and those are things the Boy was not about to do with a stranger in his house. 

Then of course, I received an exasperated lecture form my more than peeved husband about how the modem wasn't working and I needed to track the guy down and bring him back here.  Which is what I did.  Because if Dude was dumb enough to ask us for directions to his next appointment, he sort of deserved to be tracked down and informed of the angered and agitated state of his previous client.

So 2 and a half HOURS later he came back to fix the problem.  It took another 30 minutes.  And again he tried to borrow one of our phones to call Time Warner.  I smiled at him and said, "Um.  No.  I think the rental office might have a phone you can use."

Hi.  We haven't met.  An awkward situation doesn't scare me.  I've moved 400 times, NOTHING scares me anymore.

Anyway, suffice it to say that hurried him up a bit.  He was clearly uncomfortable, but he got the thing working and I told him I hoped he had a better day tomorrow.  Clearly, he wasn't having such a good day today.  He agreed and went on his merry way.

And with that, we're hoping we're done with cable internet contractors for a good long while.