Last week a young man from Comcast came to the door and explained to me that since I already subscribed to their computer and television service, I can save money by bundling my home phone into the mix. Anyway, I thought he said, “bundling,” but he must have said, “bungling.”
Joe, the installer arrived at 8 a.m. the next morning. It was his first appointment of the day. By the time he finished adjusting his tool belt, it was 9 a.m. He then took out his spyglass and began to examine my wiring. No, not my wiring, but the wiring connected to my house. He ran outside into my front yard to check a magical box and then back into the house. Then he ran into the neighbors yard to check their magical box before running back into my house. By now it was 10.a.m. Finally, he said, “You need two more wires. I’m going to drill a hole into the wall, throw a wire over your roof, and connect it to the wall on the other side. I asked him if he was bundling my phone or launching it. He ignored me.
The wiring was completed by 11 a.m. and my phone was bundled. Unfortunately, now my inter-net connection wasn’t. He fiddled with a few wires and everything started to hum. As he got into his truck, my computer stopped humming. I chased his vehicle down the street in my bare feet. He obviously had no rear view mirror on that truck.
The Comcast advertisement on television is so pleasant. A smiling woman says, “If you call, you will reach a live person.” Think about it! Of course, she doesn’t tell you that before you can reach the one or two live people that work for Comcast, you first have to talk to a robot who orders you to push buttons on your newly bundled phone, and none of the choices have anything to do with your problem.
After screaming at the Comcast machine, I finally reached a man in India who told me to unscrew a wire on my router. I now deadened my telephone and probably killed the only live person that works for Comcast. I screwed the wire back in, and finally reached a woman in the Philippines, who told me to get on the floor with my router and connect my computer to---. I yelled, “I am not paying Comcast to crawl on the floor and I want a live person to come back to my house today.” I begged her not to leave me. She connected me to a woman in Utah who told me that they were having a blizzard but would send someone to my house by 1 p.m. I told her that I didn’t live in Utah and it was 70 degrees outside.
At 2 p.m. Joe the installer called and said, “What did you do?” I told him, I didn’t do anything, and that someone had better come to my house or I would rip his wiring off my roof. At 2:30 p.m. a tattooed fellow named John arrived riding a white horse. No white horse, but he was my hero. He worked with the computer for one hour until he looked down at the router (one of the boxes buried under the tangled wires on the floor) and said, “Why are both ends of this little cord plugged into your router box?” I told him, “I have no idea. The only person fooling with my router box was Joe the Comcast guy.” John flexed his tattooed arm, disconnected both ends of the extra cord and the computer was fixed. I thanked John and as he left at 3:30 p.m. I said, ”John, please call your buddy and say, “Joe, what did you do?” He promised he would.
Today, I set my house alarm off by mistake. The phone went dead.
Esther Blumenfeld (connected, I think)