All in a days' work

(This really happened on April 1st - just waited to post it... enjoy!)

I love tech support people. Not just any tech support people - tech support with a good sense of humor.

There I was, April 1st, and my home phone and internet were down. The cable TV worked, but... without internet and phone I was lost. Well mostly the internet. I don't talk on the phone much but the internet is my line to my friends, family, work, stuff, you name it. I was lost.

L-O-S-T... lost. Couldn't check email, check pals online, or... what was that other thing? Oh yeah, I couldn't WORK. I didn't think it was any funny April Fools Day joke either. It wasn't. My service provider was having issues.

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

I could live without having to work for a day, but no internet? *GASP* Might as well cut off my sugar intake while you're at it, cruel people.

So by 10pm I was frantic. I'd done as much as I could while no internet all day - paid bills, cooked, laundry, cleaned, fiddled with paperwork, drove hubby nuts, chased the cats around the house... it was getting old. I needed my internet back. Soooo I called my cable company again... fifth time that day... they were blah blah aware of an outtage in my area blah blah blah and were still working blah blah blah blah on it and had no blah blah blah blah idea when it would blah blah blah blah blah blah be back up.

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Depressed, I went to bed HOURS early at 10:30pm. My usual fall-asleep time is well after midnight cuz I like to write STUFF LIKE THIS late at night when it's quiet and the late night talk shows are on.

Then I proceeded to wake up every 2 hours to look at the modem. Still blinking. Blinking's not good. Blinking's bad. Very bad. Blinking means no phone, and NO INTERNET.

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, I did not sleep. I dreamt of being without the internet for days and then weeks on end, stuck on some forgotten island with nothing more than a deflated basketball named Wilson and a box from Fedex with wings on it. Oh wait, that was a movie, never mind. I digress.

11am rolls around, and frustrated beyond frustrated, ready to rip hubby a new one (just for chuckles this time, the earlier time at 9am he deserved it but that's another blog some day) I decided to try and reset the modem to see if that would make any difference. Ha. So much for my rational frame of mind.

Soooo... I turned it around, unplugged ALL the things... and turned it back around to see... IT STILL LIT UP! And the light internet was still blinking, by the way.

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

How's that possible? I nearly dropped it. It was...

The Modem From Hell!! My cable company had obviously given me a possessed piece of equipment.

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Shivering, I plugged it back in, unplugged it just to check, counted to ten and looked and sure enough... It. Was. still. on!

Aaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

So I called my cable company on my cell phone, got a live tech geek, nice guy named... ohhh I forgot his name but it was something like... Derek. He sounded like a Derek and Derek's a nice name so we'll call him Derek from here on out.

I explained my situation to Derek and ended it with the part about my modem being possessed. He understood and chuckled. Best of all, he understood my fright. AND he understood that I'd been in full blown internet withdrawal for just over 24 hours and had the shock of my life from... *ominous drum roll please* The Modem From Hell. Dah dah DAHHHHH!!!!

Derek: "After a long service outage like we had yesterday, sometimes we have to reset the modem and it'll work just fine, hang in there."
Me: "I tried to reset it myself thinking that'd help but it won't reset."
Derek: "I'd be glad to reset your modem from here."
Me: "You can? Oh you're a blessing. I'm really worried about it though, should it stay on like that?"
Derek: "The newer models like you have are fully battery-backed-up so your phone will stay on in a power outage."
Me: "Ahhhh... no one told me that before."
Derek: "Okay, you ready? I'm going to reset it now."
Me: "Ready as I can ever be, do I need to back away?"
Derek: "No, it's okay. I have the holy water and cross ready, here we go."

I laughed. Pleasant AND quick with a Snappy Comeback, I like that!!

Me: "Good thing I'm wearing a necklace of garlic and I got the silver bullets in the gun already just in case."

(I took my Snappy Comeback Pill earlier too, apparently.)

He laughed and I watched the lights change on the device as he reset it remotely. In a minute it stabilized, no blinking, everything solid like it should be. Seconds later I was Googling and Yahooing and Facebooking like one drooling 'netophile and he was saying they take great pride in vanquishing the occasional vampiric modem.

I'm tellin' ya... the guy had a sense of humor. That's a blessing when you're stressed out. Next time I need to talk to a stressed out customer on the phone, I'm gonna remember Derek. He made me laugh so hard I cried.

Or maybe that was just my internet being back online that made my face wet.