Tenacity Smith's Open Salon Blog

Sometimes the man should have to kill the bug

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:07:50 -0400

The work from the honey do list continues.

After the successful vinyl siding cleaning, I realized (after donning sunglasses) that our house numbers were not very easy to read. Quite faded, they were. Thinking back to the morning of the hubby's surgery, it's actually amazing that the EMTs managed to find our house so quickly.

So I went back to the hardware store (they're getting to know me by name) and bought new numbers for the mailbox, as well as a nifty plaque with numbers for the house itself. Easy to install. And they look great. Yay me.

Our front door really needed a bit of work that I really didn't wish to delay any further. We needed a peep hole, for one. And new trim. This was kind of embarrassing, actually, as since last holiday season the only frame surrounding the front door has been cheesy holiday garland.

No, it wasn't because we were feeling particularly festive. Just lazy. Er, distracted. No, busy! Busy! That's it!

But it looks muuuuch better now. And hubby was able to manage installing the peep hole while propped on a stool while I hammered in the frame. Team work! Yay us.

I also purchased a supply of miniblinds - about medium range expensive - for damned near every window in the house.

This is because most blinds in our home looked like this one. Ahem.

But now - all done! Crisp and clean. If someone looked at our home from the outside it would appear neat and tidy. A fine facade. They don't have to know that the inside still resembles the aftermath of a tornado.

But now comes the main point of this missive.

Taking out the trash.

This job generally fell to my husband. I'd help, of course, if things were overloaded, but he usually had no difficulty wheeling the heavy dumpsters to the street.

With the doctor's lifting limitations, however, the job is now mine. Not a big deal, I'd done this for five weeks so far. And it had been working quite well, actually.

Except for last Friday.

The weather had been hot, with over 100 degrees Fahrenheit heat index, and things were sticky and humid all week.

With all of the odd jobs around the house, the trash was accumulating more rapidly than normal. So the dumpsters were unusually full.

It was early on trash day when I tipped and wheeled the first dumpster from our backyard around to the front for pick up. Piece of cake.

I got the second, it was especially heavy and amazingly odiferous, and it took some effort to maneuver. When I finally managed to tilt it back I received an unexpected shower.

Not of water.

No, it was a shower of wet trash and, um, maggots.

Now let me stop a moment and defend my own personal ick factor.

My brother was very fond of spiders and snakes and rodents in many forms so this was a normal part of our growing up (our poor mother).

For a time I'd planned on being a biologist, so I spent many teen years climbing trees and panning streams and turning rocks over and checking out every possible bug.

I love to fish. I'm good. I bait, cast, reel 'em in, kill, clean and fillet and cook whatever I catch.

Most critters do not bother me, is what I'm trying to say. Even when we discovered one of our cats had tapeworm and we had to treat the entire bunch I managed. (Pilling 5 squirming cats? I still have nightmares. And the scars from the scratches.)

I just don't do maggots.

They are quite possibly the most disgusting thing in existence.

I know their purpose. I know if they did not exist the world would be hip-deep in rotting corpses. I know this.

I just don't care.

I just want them to stay far away from me.

Of course, in the interests of science, I did do a little maggot research. Everything you wanted to know about maggots but were afraid to ask.

Life Cycle

I was surprised flies live that long, actually.

And I had no idea that these maggot things could get so big. (Okay, so this isn't really a maggot. It's still icky.)

I found out about the newest medicinal uses for maggots, and how this sort of therapy is saving lives. In fact, a friend may have to go in for some maggot work on an ankle wound. It is positive. (Still, I'm not posting a picture. Trust me. You don't want to see. Something about them crawling through open wounds in the feet . . .)

I found out some people cheerfully eat maggots. Casu marzu is a cheese made by allowing maggots to eat the fementing foodstuffs (it creates a very soft cheese). Apparently it's a delicacy. Okay.

And I learned that science is sometimes very disgusting. On more than one site I found teams of researchers who'd placed an animal carcass in a protected location and filmed it as maggots ate it down. Weeks, this takes. In some cases, months.

I've included a link to one group, Science Buzz. It's a pretty terrific site, actually. In Liza's Pig Cam Log they took daily web cam pictures of this poor dead pig as it succumbed to the munching mouths of tens of thousands of maggots.

[url]http://www.sciencebuzz.org/topics/forensic-entomology/lizas-pig-cam-log[/url]

For an extra treat make sure to click on the time-lapse videos.

At any rate, back to our story. The trash dumpster, the tipping, the unexpected shower?

Apparently there was a mass of these dead- flesh-eating wrigglers on the precariously perched bag on the top of the trash, and when I tipped the dumpster, they tipped, too.

On me.

Ew.

Ew ew ew ew ewwwwww!

Cue the early morning screams. And me, hopping around, shaking my head, completely horrified that these things were in my hair. And then I finally ripped off my T-shirt - luckily it was still kind of dark outside, and continued to flail.

Finally I ran inside, only to discover some of them were still on my feet and flip-flops. The horror.

Hubby helped.

I finally sprinted into the bathroom and took the longest, hottest shower I could manage. Better. Still shuddering beneath the hot spray, however.

After? I still had to take the dumpster around front for trash pickup.

To my surprise, most of the maggots that had spilled were gone. The sun was coming up warm, and I suppose they couldn't remain on the hot patio. And there was also a scurrying of ants everywhere. Apparently maggots are yummy food for ants.

I set the dumpster in place out front, no surprises this time, then came inside to make breakfast for the family.

But I was too tired to cook. Still too freaked out. I didn't really have the energy to manage food for everyone.

So I told the kids to toss on some clothes and we'd go out for a quick bite.

I really wasn't all that hungry, anyway. Maybe just a breakfast burrito and a side of that maggot cheese.

Honey Do List?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:07:19 -0400

Well, it's high summer. And due to circumstances beyond our control (small matter of husband having open heart surgery last month, ahem) it seems that the typical "Honey Do" list that many wives cheerfully hand to their husbands has fallen completely on my shoulders.

Yee haw.

I don't mind the mowing, really. That, and weedwhacking. Actually, I'm hell on wheels with the weedwhacker. It's a terrific stress reliever.

So over the weekend I wore my typical lawn care attire, shorts and black tank, sunglasses and black weightlifting gloves.

Hubby was pleased. Brow quirked, I asked him the reason for his leer. I was, after all, about to embark upon lawn care.

Lara Croft, said he. Really? said I.

Oooh. New fetish discovered.

Anyway, no time for that now. I was off to mow.

It was during this time that I first noticed the mole. That situation is ongoing. (see previous post)

But I also noticed, while making those lawn loops, that our house seemed to be a bit dingy. Dull. Not white. So, after I finished mowing it was back to the hardware store for me, this time for vinyl siding wash.

I changed clothes for this, into some white-on-white shirt and shorts, clothing impervious to the destructive powers of bleach. Then I proceeded to spray the hell out of our house. Dirt, watch out!

This was our house before.

This is our house now. You can't look directly at it without sunglasses. Cool, huh?

I also used the siding cleaner on our patio chairs. They've completely disappeared.

Next I hosed off the patio. Bleach does such a nice job. I noticed one of the window wells was partially filled with dry leaves so I started to scoop. But the dryer duct work, which vents into that well, had issues. Time to replace.

Back to the hardware store.

Once back home, I figured I could fix matters before cleaning out the leaves completely . So I removed the window from the inside, re-installed the vent cover, put the window back up, slid it into place.

Buzzing? Do I hear buzzing? Hmmm.

I connected things to the dryer, test drove it, was pleased it all worked. Then back outside.

I started to rake out the leaves and heard buzzing again. It was not my imagination. And then I saw the reason for the buzzing.

They attacked.

I guess I'm lucky. It could have been the killer bees.

I still had the hose attached to the vinyl siding wash so I gave 'em a spray and got the hell out of there.

I went back later, they were still buzzing around.

Luckily for me (but not for the bees) we had flash floods that night. They either drowned or found a better place, but there was no buzzing the next day.

We think this was a small group, broken off from the main colony which is currently pestering our neighbors in the rock wall which divides our property. Hee hee.

I'm tired of lawn care. Tired of bleach. Tired of moles and bees and dried leaves and the frickin' garden hose.

But none of this was as bad as the trash situation.

But that's for another day.

Egad, a mole!

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:07:08 -0400

I know what you're thinking.

But stand down, Avagadro. This has nothing to do with you. And I'm not referring to a certain type of skin condition. And no, Special Agent Gibbs is not involved, either.

I'm talking about the critter. The animal. Class: Mammalia. Order: Soricomorpha. Family: Talpidae.

Or in our case, the Star-Nosed Mole.

(cue screams)

There is no mole. Only Zuul.

Well, actually, I'm not certain if that is the actual creature currently digging huge tunnels in our backyard. I found a picture of another mole, one a bit more innocuous, even though it still looks scary. Reminds me of some sort of pissed off mutant beaver with backwards bear claws for feet.

Holey Moley!

Whichever it is, there is some variety of mole which is hell bent on reducing our backyard to a subterranean version of the Pentagon, complete with working nuclear reactor and Hitler's pencil box. And maybe even the Holy Grail. I'm not certain, I've never met a mole in person before.

Here is our yard. Notice the explosive piles of fresh dirt. See the yellowed grass in spiderweb fashion.

It began along the back fence. As I made a pass with the mower, my right foot disappeared into a hole. Then I noticed more tunneled areas. Many more. Crud. Off to the hardware store to pick up some mole pellets.

It wasn't as if I wanted to murder the little things, and I did check out other methods, but most of them were preventative. In other words, once you had moles, you were screwed. So I seeded the tunnels per directions. Done. I hoped.

But several days later we were outside grilling burgers, the kids were enjoying the swingset, and we realized that the mole and his growing entourage were continuing their evil work. There were multiple new tunnels and several piles of freshly dug dirt all around the swingset. If those little bastards continued circling the structure with their tunnels the entire thing was going to sink into the earth.

I saw that movie.

So I went back to the store, this time for some of those fake poison earthworms. As I pushed those tempting morsels of death every five feet or so throughout the tunnel system I felt kind of sorry for the moles. But I was more sorry for us, since the damn things run about $2 each.

The kids were vaguely interested in the moles but only slightly concerned about their impending demise. Good.

The poison earthworm event was two days ago. So far, no new tunnels. The mole problem may be over.

If not? My husband insists that there is one thing guaranteed to vanquish moles, whatever the situation.

(My idea was Sarah Palin, so I'd rather take his advice.)

But be afraid. Be very afraid.

What's in your yard?

Stray Cat Strut

Thu, 21 May 2009 14:05:07 -0400

We are cat people. In addition to the cats who share our home, we put food out for various strays, and in fact have feeding stations both in the front yard and in the back.

Most cats come to the front to eat, and follow their own unique schedules. It is interesting how they are able to share without fighting. There are even a couple of big toms who stop by.

The back yard tends to attract a few more woodland creatures than cats - various raccoons, bunnies - once even a possum came to the back door for a munch. It isn't as if we live out in the country, just the outskirts of town. Anyway.

Our current crop of inside cats are all rescued strays. They are quite the terrific group. One cat in particular has adopted our son - she's the best momma kitty I've ever seen. She actually watches over him while he sleeps.

But we're maxed out of room, so despite our concerns for many of the strays they can never be our inside cats. Lately we've been trying to find homes for some of the more needy of our outside crowd.

There is one lovely female cat, sort of a tortoise-shell tabby mix who is trying to adopt us. She has golden eyes. She's even sleeping on the back porch. We're trying to find her a home.

My husband has been calling her Moochie. But we've decided we need a better name for this feline.

Moochie isn't the best. Maybe Tiger? Or Tigra?

He suggested something that rhymed with Moochie. So he came up with-

Coochie?

Hoochie?

Well, if you're going to call her that, you may as well call her Goonya, I said.

Or just " Here Pussy!"

Muffy? he countered.

Brings new meaning to fur ball. Or Hair pie.

Arrgh.

Any suggestions?

Edited the post to add pictures. The first two are of Jonesey (Bustopher Jones).

He was special. Mine. We lost him last year, he was 18. It was very hard.

Not long before he grew ill, this little stray kitten wandered across our back yard.

She ran when I opened the door with food but came back to eat once I'd gone inside. She was starved, tiny, but once she realized we were safe she stayed put. She ate and slept right by the back door. After a week we took her in. Pixie is her name.

She wants to be my special cat. She sits in my lap when I'm on my laptop. It's slower for me, losing Jonesey was very hard but she is winning me over. And I don't think Jonesey would mind.

We had a total of six cats, all strays, all close to Jonesey's age, and we lost them over the past few years to various ailments or old age.

Now we have five cats, all young, all rescued strays and we're beginning the process all over again.

I'll post more pics of our current crop soon.

Surviving without DSL - warning - rather long post.

Sun, 3 May 2009 23:05:36 -0400

This is a tale of great sorrow.

Actually, this is a story that I posted on another site, my apologies, but I just came across a notebook that had my scribblings as I argued withTech Support (I scanned the pic - it's included) and it made I larf. So I wished to share. It's lengthy, but hopefully worth the ride.

It is a retelling of the circumstances surrounding the weeks my family and I were forced to live without internet, and how the various companies (plural -- companies) attempted to fix the situation.

And, of course, how we managed to deal with exceptional incompetence without committing a felony.

It is provided in the hope that you and yours will never have to go through such an ordeal.

~

Ah, the internet.

That cheerful companion and adventurous friend, that joyous and stable member of the family that waits happily at work or home; how we take it for granted. How we never even imagine that one day it might not be there.

What fools these mortals be.

I'd arrived home late from work; it was a Tuesday, as I recall. Families require attention so it was much later, long past supper before I was able to unpack my laptop. Wireless, no cords needed, I sat sipping my tea while it cycled through the start up.

The wallpaper was up but messenger stayed clear, and gmail stayed dark. Excuse me?

That's when I first noticed it. The DSL light on the modem was blinking.

Blinking?

There was no signal. (Cue dramatic music.)

And so it began.

~

After picking up the modem, giving it a good shake (and maybe a couple of hits against the wall, I can't remember) I verified that the cords were solidly reconnected while my husband checked the router. All was good.

We made the first call of many to the ISP provider.

Yes, we'd checked the cords and they were solidly attached; yes, we had filters on all of the phones (including satellite and house alarm); and yes, we were still getting a dial tone.

They were mystified, because according to their system, we still were getting a signal. Yet according to our system, we weren't.

I'm not certain they believed us, this our-not-getting-a-signal. This disbelief would be a reoccurring theme over the next few weeks.

We reset the modem. Couple of times. No change. We moved the modem closer to the phone. Still nothing.

Their response was to send us a new modem. This would take at least three days.

In the interim, striving for patience, we bought and returned three different modems from various electronic outlets and replaced all the cords with new. But nothing we tried worked.

On Friday the new modem arrived. I hooked it up, restarted, cycled things through, but the DSL light kept right on blinking.

Crap.

So we called the company again. And they asked twenty questions about the hookup. Again with the restart and other assorted nonsense. They ran a few more tests, promised to get someone out to check the lines, but didn't think it would happen until Monday.

Frustrated yet resigned to our fate, we despaired. We knew we'd never survive the weekend without internet. That's when we first discovered the joys and foibles of free Wifi.

On Saturday the entire family took a trip to the library.

~

I set up shop in the middle of this lovely open area by the reference section. There were a dozen or so tables in this huge room, each with easily accessible outlets hidden in the center. Nifty situation, really. The tables were circular or square, there were comfortable chairs, and all were within easy reach of catalogs, reference books and librarian help.

It seemed a nice place to do research or savor quality writing time.

The kids resolved their gaming fix with the PCs in the children's section, my husband left for the gym and I powered up my Dell. We were pleased.

No one seemed interested in what I was doing amid the hub of library traffic. I played on my favorite websites in relative anonymity. By the time my husband returned we were once again a congenial family unit. Birds were singing, butterflies were fluttering, and there were unicorns and rainbows and all sorts of cheery crap.

Happily, our first Wifi attempt at the library was a rousing success.

The next afternoon I returned alone. This time, perhaps feeling guilty because it was a Sunday, I purposefully located myself away from the well-traveled path. But for some reason it seemed that every person in the library felt the need to pass by my table. Families, singles, loud or silent, hurried or slow, they all ogled my goodies, er, laptop screen, as they searched for their elusive books.

It was strange. I wasn't making any attempts to be secretive. Friends quipped that perhaps people recognized me from a certain forum. That wasn't very helpful, nor were the suggestions that perhaps I shouldn't be naked beneath my trench coat and dark glasses.

But I like being naked beneath my trench coat and dark glasses.

Maybe it was the fake mustache.

I finally realized that the people peeking were just nosy. And perverts.

Educated, of course, and literary, but still perverts.

With mustache fetishes.

~

It was now Monday, nearly a week gone. Still no DSL.

The man sent to check the lines had no answers. He was apologetic but seriously stumped. The first company said they could not help us so we canceled them and began negotiations with company number two.

To our dismay, we learned that the second company could not proceed until the first company released the phone lines. It would probably be another week (and another weekend) before that would occur.

Now we were really beginning to feel the frustration sink in. Though able to access email accounts at work or school, our family was unable to open specific gaming sites, download music, view My Space or Facebook pages, and post on certain porn forums. We were all showing withdrawal symptoms, among them profuse sweating, anxiety, various cravings, and serious irritability.

Still, we survived the week, and the next weekend we drove to the library again. We were reduced to this now, no other options, not until the ISP gods decided to pull their heads from their collective asses and other respective bodily orifices.

Luckily Saturday passed relatively uneventfully, much like the previous attempt. It was Sunday that truly tried my patience.

We'd just dropped the kids off at Sunday school, and, on a whim, I turned on my laptop. Wifi access? In the church parking lot? Hallelujah!

I felt truly filthy. I had become an internet junkie, grabbing a quick fix whenever possible. And now, here I was, stealing signal from the church.

I'd been reduced to a Wifi whore. (Bow chicka wow wow.)

On a serious note, if there is a devil, he is certainly in charge of tech support. Just saying.

After church, the kids had youth group and other activities so I drove to the library alone. As I approached the building I noticed the picket signs.

It was that ridiculous pseudo-religious family group, the ones who hate and picket everything just for publicity. For some reason they were spreading their disgusting message outside the library.

I entertained brief thoughts of mowing them down with my car but luckily a cooler head prevailed. I could have damaged my laptop and then I'd really be screwed.

Once inside the library the strangeness continued. A very loud family was sitting with their laptop a few tables away from me, mom, dad, toddler and baby in stroller. The mother was downloading music, and in a very noisy fashion.

No, not the music. She was noisy. Every so often she loudly declared, "They want me to fucking pay for this?" This was to the consternation of the librarian and the other people in the area. She was very distracting.

And there was another issue, comical, but still intrusive. There was an older man sitting at a table by himself, happily reading, chatting up people as they walked by. At one point he leaned his body way over to one side and played the butt trumpet long and loud in the semi-silence of the library. Then he said, "Ooooh, boy!" Then he went back to his book.

At this point I wondered again about the internet gods. Were they listening? Were they even up there?

Because if they were, they had a seriously warped sense of humor.

And it was pissing me off.

~

Days went by without me posting. Fucking weeks. But whenever I had the chance to check, I saw things were still normal, web places were still loaded with flirting and bitching and politics and love and lust.

Forum friends, God love 'em, had many suggestions for someone in my situation.

Drinking in the library topped the list. Apparently it would be easy to hide rum in a covered glass by pretending it was iced tea. Some offered peanut butter cups to ease my pain. Others swore they wouldn't forget me, and then called me by a completely different name. Such as Sandy.

I was beginning to get a tic over my right eye.

Many forum buddies teased about flirting with females who were hanging out at the library all alone. Some spoke of the sexy qualities of libraries and librarians, another whispered naughty thoughts about using the Oxford Dictionary beneath my head and three of the World Book Atlases beneath my hips for the proper angle. Ahem.

I think we would not have survived without the assistance of the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the Final Four Tournament. My husband and I are graduates of the university and serious fans, and that gave terrific diversions for several weekends.

To add to the truly bizarre tone of this affair, one morning while having breakfast at IHop we met Fumbles the Clown. Fumbles made balloon animals for our entire family. Strangely enough, we saw him again at another restaurant a few days later. And when we went out for pizza we saw him yet again.

We finally decided it was a positive omen. Well, first we decided that we probably ate out too much. But as to Fumbles, we liked him and his balloon animals, tipped him hugely for his efforts, and were all very glad he used his powers for good. We needed all the positive karma we could get.

~

Still no DSL.

And so it was that we were again stuck at the library for the third weekend.

We felt, irrationally I know, that the DSL had somehow become disconnected on the actual telephone pole. I'm not sure why we had this thought but we just knew it, deep inside. Something along the lines of, "Climb up the pole, you monkey ass cowboys, and fix our blasted DSL."

Wishing to help the proceedings, we shared this information with them.

They refused to believe us.

Actually, they told us it wasn't that simple. And they said it kind of snotty, too.

Why do some techies never take a person's word on things? And why is it that some tech support folks from huge companies refuse to notate what was done on a previous call, so when you call again and again, each new tech support person wants you start at the beginning?

Honestly, if one more person asked me if I had the Ethernet cord in the proper slot I was going to tell him into which specific body slot he could shove his fucking Ethernet cord.

Though nearing the end of our proverbial rope, we still strove for patience with DSL. We'd called about cable rates but we were stalling because we already owned a satellite dish. We just hated the thought of wasting money on cable. On the other hand, they'd promised to hook us up in just a couple of days.

And the DSL light still blinked.

~

I got home from the library that Saturday and in a fit of desperation called the company again. This time I spent an hour and forty-five minutes on the phone. Small warning here. Names have not been changed to protect the innocent or guilty. The picture is from my notebook doodlings. I wish it could convey the desperation. Notice the number of stars.

I began with simple tech support, once I got through the automated answering system. Tech support. With Brandon.

Brandon asked me all the stupid questions we'd been asked repeatedly for the past three weeks. I was polite, but he was probably unaware how close he came to being seriously maimed. When I assured him we had an open ticket for repair he sent me to level two.

I was on hold for two minutes listening to pathetic jazz music, and when he transferred me he managed to drop the call. Oops. His bad.

I called again, and flatly said "Tech support." every time the automated voice asked me what I wanted. I finally got there again.

This time it was Matt. Matt was more on the ball than Brandon, and once I loudly stated said I had an Open Repair Ticket (capitalized seemed to declare the importance of the thing) he immediately sent me to level two (also known as DEFCON 4). This time he gave me the number of our trouble ticket, and also the direct number to maintenance.

Strangely enough, I got there this time, and met up with Stephanie. Stephanie is important because she actually hung in there with me for damn near the rest of the call. She figured prominently in the group sex. Er, group calling.

Stephanie took our information. Studied it. Thought and schemed, hoped and dreamed. After some thorough digging, she actually found the problem.

The. Problem.

We had two separate accounts.

Apparently there was trouble with the phone line at one time. When they fixed it, for some odd reason they added another line. Same number, different customer code.

So now we understood why they said our DSL was hooked up when we knew it was not. Different lines.

I was initially jubilant. We now had a reason for the weeks of difficulties.

Stephanie said nothing could be done since it was the weekend but she sent the three of us to Nate. Nate wondered if we'd accept dial up just as a token until DSL kicked in. Was he kidding? Hell, yes!

He set up the system with both Stephanie and me on the line. A little tech support three-way. That wasn't as fun as it sounds. But it was working splendidly until he got to the part about our internet address. We didn't have an internet address yet, as we'd never before had service with company number two.

Jesus.

No, that's not swearing, that's the name of the next tech support person Stephanie and Nate sent me to. Jesus. Now we were a four-way. Still not fun. Jesus set up our account, gave us a non-web-based email address and password and key question. Good.

Fumbles the Clown is our code name, if anyone needs to know. Anyway.

I called them on my cell in order to hook up the dial-up modem to my laptop. That's when I discovered I had no dial-up modem drivers installed. Jesus told me to call the laptop company and have them mail us a CD. I told him I'd rather eat dirt. Instead, I opted to go to a Wifi spot for a quickie download. He thought a quickie was a good idea.

So now I was back with Stephanie. Stephanie lives in California, by the way, and she ran diagnostics on our phone line during the time Jesus and I were having our quickie. She said I should call our phone provider to double-check the system because she found additional problems on our line.

Problems on the line? What the hell? Our phone had been working fine. Stephanie wouldn't answer my questions on this matter. I thought she seemed very evasive.

Finally I asked -- didn't she work for the same company as our phone provider? Why couldn't they communicate with each other in a more productive manner? And that's when Stephanie became defensive.

I grew annoyed with Stephanie, that slut. She grew annoyed with me, too, and suggested I call billing and sales to see if they could somehow expedite our order. I suggested she take a flying fuck on a rolling doughnut.

But I called billing and sales.

I talked to Chris. Chris was cool.

I told Chris the situation in a few words. He said, "No problem."

Excuse me?

He said, "I understand the situation. Let me see what I can do."

Then he quietly hummed the theme to Love Boat while I heard the lightning-fast clickety-clack of his keyboard.

"Okay," he said, back with me. "A change ticket probably won't get done until Tuesday. But an outage ticket will probably be up Monday night. My buddy Mark works Monday. I'll email the information to him and he'll get right on it."

I was speechless. Well, just for a few seconds. Mark and Chris? Ooooh.

Then I said, "Really? 'Cause you know that slut Stephanie in California?" (He confessed he did not.) "Well, Stephanie said it would be next Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest date. She said we had to start all over with a separate account."

He laughed. "Nope. We're in Missouri, close by. If Mark doesn't call you back on Monday, I will, to let you know what is happening."

At this point I was seriously in love with Chris. I was debating having his children or at least engaging in some thoroughly nasty sex.

So this was good. So far.

But now I was headed back to the library in search of a dial-up driver. No picket signs, no flatulent men, and no music downloading bitches; everything seemed positive. I found the drivers and quickly downloaded what I needed.

Back home again. I tried, with some trepidation, to dial-up.

Error 691: Access was denied because the user name and/or password were invalid on the domain.

Jesus.

I mean, Stephanie!

At this point I just looked up at my husband. Speechless again. I was done in, truly. Husband saw my condition, noticed my sad puppy dog eyes and took over.

He used his cell, copied the information from my laptop and called about the error message. He spoke with Blake.

Blake tried to fix the situation but it was beyond his skills or his department. He had to send it to Chaz at DEFCOM 4.

My husband talked for a long while with Chaz. Chaz didn't know Stephanie, Mark, or Chris, but it wasn't necessary. Between the two of them, husband and Chaz, they fixed it. The dial-up, anyway.

And at that moment, I was actually on-line. With the slow speed it felt like I was using stone knives and bearskins, and of course downloading naughty pictures was out of the question, but for the first time in nearly a month I was actually on line at my own house.

And yes, my husband got seriously laid that night.

But my jubilance only lasted until Monday night (though the grin on my husband's face remained for a few more days).

While I was at work Monday, Chris left a message on my cell phone. He said we should be up. Just like that.

And he gave us the magic number to call back if we had problems.

On the way home that night the kids very excited, singing praises to Chris and Mark and the rest of the tech support gods. I dared hope that the situation had finally been resolved. But once we arrived we found out the DSL was still not connected.

Still.

Chris lied to me. Mark, too, albeit vicariously.

I felt so wronged. I no longer wanted to bear Chris's children. And of course any illicit sex was completely out of the question.

I was done. My husband called the company again and this time spoke with Sam. Sam decided it was time to send someone out.

Finally.

That took three days. They checked the lines outside of our house, monkeyed with a few switches and then wonder of wonders the modem light stopped blinking red and started blinking green.

And then it stopped blinking and remained a solid green. It was on. It was really on. After more than a month, after countless days of frustration, DSL was finally reestablished. The crisis was over. The world was once again spinning in greased grooves.

Well, not exactly.

To our dismay, we discovered major glitches in the entire system. We couldn't network our home computers in the same manner they'd been, couldn't get the DSL to stay connected at certain times, and we couldn't get the wireless to work at all.

Actually, as pessimistic as we'd become during these past weeks, it functioned about as well as we all expected it to.

So we called them once more. And as it turned out, for the last time. Their solution? They wanted to send us a new modem.

It should only take a couple of days, they said, and they suggested we check our cords, including the location of the Ethernet . . .

Jesus.

No, not him. The real one.

We called the cable company.

~

So -- what have we learned from this experience?

1. If your DSL goes out, be prepared for a month of headache, minimum, unless you offer sexual favors to speed up the repair process. I'm still regretting not succumbing to that tidbit of wisdom.

2. It's never the modem, no matter what they tell you. It's never the ethernet cord, or the phone cord, or a lack of dial tone or anything else inside your house. The problem resides with them. And they will never admit it.

3. Prepare in advance. Search for free Wifi locations in your area now in case this happens to you. Churches are solid standbys. If you are relegated to the library, be prepared to deal with such headaches as picket sign carrying evangelists, flatulent library men, angry music downloading women and nosy perverted library patrons with mustache fetishes who try to catch quick glimpses of your porn stash. Remember, there are a lot of creepy people out there who use free Wifi.

I used to think the library had erotic potential. After this experience it has definitely lost some of its appeal. But I suppose a Wifi whore can't be too picky.

4. Clever diversions such as the Final Four and Fumbles the Clown can ease but not completely mask the pain and frustration of a DSL-free home. Keep you and yours very busy.

5. Suggestions and flirtations from well-meaning friends are humorous and fun but in the end, not helpful in the least. Hopefully you won't be absent forever or at least so long that you'll be forgotten on your favorite forums.

6. It is best to begin every call to tech support with the phrase, "I Have An Open Repair Ticket." Those magic words will get you past the gates into the wondrous land of level two, or DEFCOM 4, perhaps even higher.

7. Stephanie and Jesus and Chris were helpful in their own way but no one person had all of the answers, even though they worked for the same company. Well, hell. The entire company didn't have all the answers.

8. Dial-up is slower than snails but we were humbled and pleased to be able to have even that for a while. Small blessings. Whodathunkit?

9. Don't get your hopes up. With each call it seemed we were closer to the Promised Land, only to see our dreams dashed when the DSL light kept blinking red and/or green. Damned thing, anyway. No matter how many times we tossed the modem against the wall the light kept on blinking.

10. After you've exhausted every venue with the DSL gods, it may be best to dump them completely and switch to someone like Cox Cable.

On second thought, you might as well go with cable before you bother with anything else. Save yourself weeks of heartache.

We should have known better, anyway. How can you go wrong with a name like Cox?