Disconnected

To call my home internet service through Charter "spotty" would be kind. It is reliably unreliable. I cannot make it through an entire evening of using it without having to go down to my router and reseting it at least once. [No, it is not my router's problem. Believe me. I have some skill in this area. To help prove my point consider: I set up the network in Sherry's apartment, with a very similar router, but with Comcast as her ISP, and it has never, ever failed. Ever.]

Last night was even worse than normal. At 7:30 PM (just after I had finished connecting to work on it) it stopped working. I went through the normal recycling of the router. That didn't work. I reset the modem and the router. That didn't work, either. I left all three pieces unplugged for a good long time, and started over. No luck. Finally, I decided I could handle being disconnected for an hour or two and I just left them all off, played some Civ IV, watched Stargate: Atlantis, and tried not to think of all the blogs I was planning on writing.

Finally, at 9:30, I plugged it all in again, and .... NOPE.

So I decided it was time to call Charter.

I got through the initial maze of options, and finally on the queue for a support person. Of course, I had to go on hold. No matter. I brought my phone up to the TV and watched more Stargate, listening to the TV with one ear while the other heard the "on-hold patter" -- "Do you know most of your internet questions can be answered by visiting Charter.com and reading the Frequently Asked Questions?" Not very likely, Ms. Recorded-Voice, when I can't freakin' connect!

My phone keeps track of how long you've been connected to a number. 35 minutes later, after hours of listening to the repeated scripts Ms. Recorded-Voice is forced to foist on us, she just stopped. Nothing. No music. No patter. Nothing. I must have waited longer than their on-hold system thought anyone would ever wait. So I had that satisfaction. I outwaited them.

But it did me no good. I went to bed without checking Facebook, or e-mail, or blogging. I felt like a modern-day hermit, I tell you. [No offense intended to the hermits who might be reading this.]

Thankfully, I am mere hours from spending a couple of days in Sherry's apartment, where [as I said before] the Comcast network seems to be infallible.

So if it fails while I am there, I will know that Internet technology has decided to shun me, and I will go off the grid. I can take a hint!