I'm Baaaaack!

I was in Vermont for four days with friends. You remember the famous Marco, who has had a few posts written about him on this blog? I went with his family. Had a great time. More on that later.

I got home Tuesday night,checked email (after four days, I had a lot), unpacked a little, plugged in the A/C that my landlord had thoughtfully put in for me, and went to bed early.

On Wednesday night I couldn't for the life of me connect to the internet. On Thursday morning when I went to call Verizon about my DSL, I discovered that my land line was dead. Goddammit. I used my cell phone and had to go through all kinds of changes to make an appointment for someone to come and check my line on the next day. Had to go to a friend's house to do some important emailng. I do not like not being online!

This was the third time my phone has had a problem within a year. It's never my fault, and they always come out and fix it right away. I had to go through the questions: "Did you check everything?" Yes, I checked everything. I hadn't, really, but it had happened twice before, I was not about to go buy a test phone again, have it not work, and then bring it back to the store. Let them come and look at it and fix it.

Finally got the appointment for today and had to be home between 9 and 2. Why is it that I can stay home all day on a Saturday and park myself in front of the TV, no problem, but when I'm required to stay home to wait for a service person, I'm so frustrated, like I have things to do?

Anyway, the Verizon truck pulled up at 1:15 and a woman who looked like a grandmother got out and said she just wanted to check the line from inside. She tried it from my phone, but then had to go directly to the jack. She bent down to look at the jack and said, "Oh, it's loose." Click. And that was it. I had a flash in fast motion, like in the movies, of me plugging in the A/C and loosening the phone plug in the jack.

Oh my god, I had never been so embarassed in my entire life, and told Grandma Verizon so. She was so sweet, she immediately told me she wasn't going to charge me for it. She stayed to make sure I got online, then left.

Note to self: check everything when they say to check everything. As my friend Hiro said, that's Troubleshooting 101. Got it. Glad to be back online.