Bundles of Joy

And by "joy," we mean the polar opposite of joy. Now THAT's sarcasm!

A few weeks ago, frustrated by our perpetually slow internet service at Solipsist HQ, we broke down and signed up for a communications "bundle" from a major communications company that shall remain nameless AT&T. We opted for the "U-verse" package, which included high-speed internet, cable TV, and phone service, all for a reasonable monthly price just slightly lower than the gross national product of Luxembourg. What a bargain! All was going along swimmingly until yesterday when, for no apparent reason, our cable went out. One minute WOS was happily watching reruns of "The Golden Girls" (or whatever), the next--nothing!

Annoying, right? But here's the thing: Now that we were "bundled," we didn't just lose our cable--we lost our internet. And our phone. Solipsist HQ had suddenly become 1800's house.

Well, thanks be to the deity for cell phones: WOS called AT&T and they promised to send someone over immediately. Now, the threat of a maintenance man coming over had the desired effect: Everything suddenly started working again! Until the maintenance man showed up! Yes, folks, as soon as he came over, he informed us that he had checked our lines and there was a problem. Not a problem that prevented things from WORKING, though, so the maintenance guy obviously shut us down out of spite. Not to worry, though, someone would be out by the end of the day to fix our lines--this being an "external" problem that first guy was unqualified to fix.

We waited.

We called.

We waited.

We were assured.

We waited.

We were reassured.

We watched the entire SciFi miniseries "The Lost Room," which we happened to have from Netflix (not bad, incidentally).

This morning, the "external" guy showed up. He fixed everything! Everything, that is, except our cable, phone, and internet. For this, we were told, we would need another "internal" repair call. But BOY do our external lines look great!

We were assured that internal guy #2 would come between 12:00 and 4:00. Around 3:45, the Solipsist got a call on his cell phone (why the call came on HIS phone, when AT&T had been calling WOS on her phone all day is a mystery best left to tje sages). The caller, "Monique," left a message saying she was about ten minutes away and she was hoping that somebody would be there to let her in. Now, we knew that WOS was there to let "Monique" in, so we didn't call her back. We went home for a bite to eat around 4:00. We got home around 4:20. No "Monique." We called "Monique" and got her voice mail. Just checking to see what's going on. . . . Heh. . . Hope to see you soon. . . .

Nothing.

Around 4:45, we had to leave to come back to work for our evening class, but we figured we'd try "Monique" one last time. She answered! "Hey, this is the Solipsist. Uh. . . Are you going to be here soon?"

"Oh, I WAS there, but I wasn't able to get in."

"What?!?"

"Yeah, there's a gate, so I can't come in without permission."

"But the gate was open!"

"I know, but LEGALLY I can't come in without permission."

"Well, why didn't you CALL?"

"I did! I called and said I would be there in ten minutes. You didn't call me back!"

"YOU DIDN'T SAY WE HAD TO CALL YOU BACK!"

"Well, I said 'I hope someone's there to let me in.'"

"SOMEBODY WAS HERE TO LET YOU IN! WOS WAS HERE TO LET YOU IN!"

"Well, I waited out front for fifteen minutes, and nobody called me back!"

"Um. . . So, while you were 'waiting out front for fifteen minutes,' it didn't occur to you, maybe, to try calling again?"

"Well, I guess that would have been a good idea, seeing as how you're angry about this."

"YA THINK?!?"

It's OK, though, Nation. She said that she would come right over. We told her that she HAD PERMISSION to enter. We also told her that we wouldn't be there, but our wife would. The funny thing is that, when she heard she wouldn't be dealing with us, SHE probably thought she was getting off easy.

We just hope WOS doesn't hurt her too badly.