My Angry Rant against Comcast

Posted on January 10, 2014 by cloverhays

Everyone has days where things go wrong. Today I had one. It wasn’t big stuff. No one was gruesomely injured. We didn’t lose our house, our dog, our children. Nothing burned. Still, my day just sucked. I put all of the blame squarely on Comcast, my mortal enemy.

I believe that Comcast, married to Obama, could power a universe with their evil. Set that to the music of Kenny G and it would form a trifecta from which Armageddon could be set into motion.

My family had been wailing daily of the slowness of our internet. To me, it was fine. I’m not running any power plants or controlling mutant dwarfs through imaginary lands, though. I’m just tracking my calories, my steps, checking Facebook, ordering stuff and writing crap. What do I know?

So, I got sucked into the Comcast myth. The myth that it would be zippy fast and we would, indeed, be ushered into the world of the future.

This is its insidious path of destruction:

Since its installation I have seen The Goose shoot smoke from his ears. I have seen him throw things that make the dogs run and cower. He has clung to our neighbor, begging for help. The man has utilized his mighty powers of obscene swearing to the utmost. Comcast shut his entire office down. It has caused his printer (which is also my printer) not to accept things from me. Apparently my sweet obedient Macbook is making romantic overtures, but the printer is in flannel pajamas. Like an unhappy marriage, they can no longer communicate.

Our TV picture is now made of little squares, through which I must only imagine what is going on. Our DVR doesn’t work.

To call Comcast, one must call the 800 number. Oh, there’s a local number, but it routes one to the 800 number. Sneaky. Once answered, there is a series of digits that must be pressed to get to an operator. This takes a good 45 minutes, if it indeed ever happens. This is all done to the accompaniment of Kenny G. It causes the equivalent of ice picks to my eardrums and goes on for eons. Dishwashers get unpacked and repacked. I stripped four beds, washed the sheets and remade them during one wait. I think one day I drove to the grocery store, shopped and was putting away groceries before a human being answered.

When the operator comes on, the fun begins.

I have no problem with India. I loved the Marigold Hotel movie. I liked Eat, Pray, Love. I like my Indian orthopedic doctor. I have a real problem, though, with someone six million miles away telling me they understand, could I please calm down. When I hung up from the last call The Goose said “The man on the other end of that call is thanking Vishnu you’re not his wife”. Damn straight.

I got so frustrated, I cried. Not from sadness, but from sheer rage.

Three times I’ve managed to get a service person out here. It took 11 calls and 3 full man hours waiting on hold to accomplish this. In 30 days, three service people. Each time, they have told me the last one didn’t know what he was doing. Ya think? Yesterday, I was told my equipment, which was installed 30 days ago, was old.

My bill, my first bill, has a mysterious $125 extra charge on it. I still have not reached anyone to ask about this but feel if I just ignore them for a while, someone will eventually contact me about it.

So, in the midst of this misery, I needed to mail stuff. Stuff I couldn’t print. I’ll take my laptop to the UPS store, thought I. On the way my phone died. This probably was not the fault of Comcast, but one never knows. I think the very presence of that unholy entity in our home could be sending poison throughout each and every electrical appliance as well as my brain. I dropped my phone in with my dry cleaning and figured that out about an hour later after numerous panic filled searches through my car and purse. Had to go back to the cleaners and try to explain that. In Korean.

The UPS store couldn’t print my stuff. I still don’t understand why. I blame Comcast or Obama. I couldn’t call anyone and whine about it, though, because my phone still wouldn’t work.

Came home, tried to use the little printer that came with my computer two years ago. Doesn’t work! Keeps telling me it is out of paper. I have told it, in a fatal move with a paper weight made of rock that it did, indeed, have paper after all, but that won’t matter to it where it’s going. I do blame Comcast here because I couldn’t use my regular printer because it is out, lost in the new internet stratosphere.

Why, you ask, do I waste time writing about this? Because all of this started because my home office is FUBAR, all due to the inadequacy of Comcast. I’m hoping an angry mob will form. A group that will complain loudly enough that someone will listen. A sound loud enough to be heard all the way to India. Or even a group that will band together with me to systematically spray paint every truck and sign that says Comcast and change it to Combastard.

It’s 4:00 and I’m calling it a day. I know when I’m beaten. I am waiving the white wine, I mean white flag. I find that these days are most often followed by a day where everything works beautifully. I’m counting on one of those tomorrow and if I don’t get one I’m finding the first Comcast truck I see on the road. You’ll read the headlines.

Middle Aged Woman, in Cute Sparkle Boots, with Fabulous Necklace, Holds Comcast Employee Hostage.

Man is Made to Listen for Hours to Intense Whining and Bitching Set to the Tune of Kenny G.

Candy Crush Shame

Posted on October 4, 2013 by cloverhays

I just spent 15 minutes tearing around my house in a middle aged rage, all because I could not, once again, locate my cell phone.

This is a common occurrence in our house. I feel belligerent and rebellious about being tethered to this device. At my age, I no longer want to care for a needy baby, especially one made of glass and costing almost as much as a human newborn. My family constantly begs the question of me, “why do you even have a phone?”.

The problem with the misplacement comes because I keep the device on silent. I do this because I secretly, and with much shame and self-loathing, play Candy Crush.

There, I’ve said it. I keep it quiet so that when the game pops up, the music doesn’t erupt and alert my family to the fact that I’m not doing something selfless and focused solely on them. I frequently sigh and mutter about lowering bills and checking grades when I’m on my phone. I feign exhaustion from work emails. I do not advertise on Facebook that I need lives. I hide my secret shame.

But, like any other junkie scum, I have passed my addiction on to my offspring, roping Cricket in with the typical gateway words of “here, try this, you’ll like it”. Only with her, alone in the darkened den, after the decent family has gone to bed, do I share the level of my evil (128). Only to her can I talk freely of doughnut bombs and striped candy. Only she understands my slurred “Divine!”.

Game addiction is not new to me. When I was first pregnant, miserably and surprisingly pregnant, a good friend gave me a Nintendo to keep me and my bags of Cheddar Cheese Ruffles company. At this time, The Goose and I were living with my parents while we built a house. When The Goose would come home from work, stunning in a suit and tie, there I’d be, glassy eyed and sweaty, trying to save Princess Peach. I dreamed about eating mushrooms, the cartoon kind, not the Jefferson Airplane kind. I couldn’t pass a flower without wanting to jump on it in hopes of super powers. It became my job.

The Goose gave me a stern talking to. He has no head for games, dare I say no ability, and was, understandably, shaken by the visual of the larger and pajama clad me, surrounded by chip crumbs and slamming my mothers pound cake.

I agreed to step away from the game. Once I had been “clean” for 30 days and had moved into my new house leaving the machine behind, I came back to visit my folks walking in to find them in their matching recliners, jaws slack, knuckles swollen on the remotes, cigarette hanging from my fathers mouth with a two inch ash, while they battled the pills on Dr. Mario. It’s a sickness.

The Trophy Wife and I once shared a handheld Tetris game for 11 hours and over two states while driving back from south Florida. We traded back and forth at rest stops and gas stations, texting foul and taunting messages at each other, insulting the other’s mother and soul, while I eviscerated her with a high score that has yet to be challenged. Yes, I said it, I still hold highest score. And while the device has been dead for years, there is a picture that I can produce any time she gets mouthy about her abilities

For this reason I never got my kids any video games. I know it’s a problem, pale chubby kids sequestered away in dank basements, developing muscles only in their thumbs. The Boy played outside with fire and gas, knives and BB guns, like a boy should. Each holiday I warily offered them one, but they always declined, The Boy asking for hatchets and explosives and Cricket, from age 3, asking for agendas, white boards and software, like any good nerd.

But now the problem has reared it’s ugly head with Candy Crush. I just saw where a friend has publicly renounced the game and has sworn to abstain for 9 months, during the school year. I’m not ready to do this yet, but after looking for my silent phone all over the house this morning, only to find it tucked inside my BRA, (This begs other questions about my rack that I am not yet ready to address.) I might be able to make the first step and admit I might have a problem. Is there a 12 step for this?

The Giant Umbilical Cord

Posted on August 18, 2013 by cloverhays

Just a few weeks ago my son, The Boy, went away on a mission trip. On this trip, they could not take their phones nor communicate back home in any way. They left on a Sunday morning and by Thursday, I was willing to fly, drive, swim or make smoke signals just to hear from him. I picked up my phone to text him a hundred times and then sighed and put it back down.

Let me digress by saying that The Boy and I are not in the best of places. He’s been my sweet and snuggly child since birth. Never any trouble, affable, effortless popular with his peers and a certified chick magnet. My house has always been the place where his friends gather and I am close to them as well. About the time he was fifteen and a half, he left for school and a demon came home wearing his body. “Hi! How was school? I missed you!” I chirped when he came in the door, my arms flung wide for a hug, and something reptilian moved behind his eyes and he snarled and slunk to his room. A sullen, entitled changeling snuggled beneath the sheets on which I had used extra lavender scented fabric softener. A demon sighed every time I asked it where it was going when it headed to its car (that I gave it). In its eyes, I ceased to be cool, which I know is not the case in reality, so I can only assume that The Boy had been possessed.

From that day forward, I’ve seen glimpses of my darling boy, sometimes weeks of sweetness, and then the monster gets control again.

I should have expected this. Cricket went through the same thing, only her great rebellion was black eyeliner, screaming music and an attitude that caused her to be nicknamed “Black Heart”. She popped right out of that at about 17 and has been the sweet dream she was most of her life since then.

I never thought it would happen to The Boy, though, the happiest child on Earth. No matter how much his monster is in control, we still do a fair amount of texting during the day and even that manages to convey a devilish snippiness. A sampling of a recent conversation:

Me: Hey! Where are you?

Boy: In my room?

Me: Is that in question or are you confused about punctuation?

Boy: …

Me: Could you call me please?

Boy: I can’t, my phone is broken

Brilliant response, oh bright one.

Being out of contact made me realize just how much I communicate with my family. Those experts who say that family communication is dead are just wrong.

Cricket and I send approximately 2,000,000 text daily. She texts me about what everyone is wearing in her class, whether it rained when she was walking to her building and what cute boys were at the gym. Then, we discuss people we know. I tell her I just used Soft Scrub on the sink and removed a troubling stain. I tell her I’m at the carwash. I tell her when I am mad at The Goose and why. She backs me up. Next, I tell her all is well and she agrees that he’s the best dad ever. I tell her what her brother wore to school, what I think about the girl he’s dating, the fact that I had to stop for gas and my current calorie count for the day. She texts me that her hair is frizzy and she’s not happy with her shoes.

The Goose texts me his demands for the day. Have I taken the trash to the street? Are his shirts back from the cleaners? Did I call the gas company about a problem? He tells me who he saw at Matthew’s Cafeteria at lunch. He texts me links to news stories in which he knows I have no interest. He texts me to come upstairs to his office. On the way up, I get a text that he needs a Mountain Dew and while going back downstairs to get it, another that he needs his glasses. When he goes to the lake without me, he usually imbibes, out of loneliness from missing me I guess, and drunk texts me silly teenage type declarations of love that cause me to blush and giggle.

The Goose talked with his mother daily. I called it the “Giant Umbilical Cord”. I kinda regret this now that my kids are almost grown because I can’t imagine how often I’ll contact them during the day once I don’t actually see them every day.

My point is, we communicate A LOT.

The Boy got a phone in the 5th grade. Those of you without sin, just get over it. He then proceeded to send 6 consecutive phones through the washing machine, in the pockets of his pants. He would take his allowance and go right back out to Target and plunk down another $12.99 for a new one. I kept waiting for the lesson to sink in. Since then, he has continued to destroy phones, one after another, and our family’s DRAWER OF TECHNOLOGY SHAME is overflowing. I confess that we have all contributed to this. All just to stay connected.

(I know, it’s embarrassing, our drawer of shame)

Here’s the thing. Several days into the week, I had forgotten all the things about The Boy that have gotten on my nerves. I remembered that he really is sweet most of the time, is a great kid, stays out of trouble, mostly, and chooses to bring his friends home instead of roaming the streets with hookers and drugs. He actually does hug me often, even if it is the bone crunching, rib breaking kind. He pokes me, punches my arm and stands next to me, commenting on my height, a teenage boy’s way of showing love. He was on a mission trip, not lying on a beach in PC wondering where his pants got to last night. He is a moral, funny, loyal young man who would be there for any of us in a minute. Some of his friends stayed at my house, having chosen not to go home but to just wait out the week here, and I overheard them, lounging in their pajamas every morning, talking about how much they missed him and counting the days until he came home. There is a FB page where they posted daily pictures of the trip and we scoured each one until we found him, looking cute in a straw hat. At no point did I fume about the state of his closet or glower over the glasses and chip bags left in the basement.

Maybe there is something to “absence makes the heart grow fonder” because I arrived to pick him up an hour early, straining my ears for the sound of his bus and the sight of his tan, sleep deprived self almost brought me to tears. If a week can do this for a teenage boy, maybe we’re all TOO connected? Possibly this is why kids come home from college, husbands come home from business trips, even soldiers come home from oversees and seem all new and shiny, seemingly without their demons in tow. It is conceivable that we just communicate too much and should go back to a time when communication was just face to face? Nah, LOL. TTYL. 🙂

Rise of the Machines

Posted on December 4, 2012 by cloverhays

I have been in blog purgatory. This is the holding pen for those of us not quite able to get to writing. It’s not that I haven’t had things to say, oh, I always have something to say, it’s just that I’ve been technologically unavailable.

First, I had to have a new car. I was happy with my old car. I liked it so much that I bought three of the exact same cars in a row. Then my last baby turned 16 and it just made sense to my family for him to rip my beloved car away from me and for me to get a new one. Well, they don’t make the old kind anymore. Shopping for a new car made me angry and confused. The Goose complained, my kids offered useless advise by continually asking if I’d driven a Maserati. Finally, I actually did go test drive a Maserati and this made me grouchier than before because I found that I WANTED a Maserati. I realized I was TIRED of driving a mom car and, by golly, it was about time for MY midlife crisis since the Goose has already had two. Of course, he is older.

When I finally chose my cute convertible, a cheaper, slower, more trailer trash cousin of the Maserati, I tried to settle back into life, but I still didn’t feel like myself. My car wanted to converse with my phone. My daughter, Cricket, set this up for me and, though I didn’t understand it, I accepted it. Sometimes people call me and they speak to me through the radio and I’ll have to confess this freaks me out. I saw a lot of scary movies as a teenager. Now it’s happened, they are heeeerrre. I just shout back into space and hope someone can hear me.

The next trouble came when my children declared my comfortable old green phone a dinosaur. A veritable covered wagon of a phone. A brick. It’s true that it no longer did everything I asked of it, but I understood, feeling much the same about things myself. There is much I’m asked to do that I just don’t feel like doing anymore. Still, I went forth and bought the most up to date, space age phone known to mankind. Because I don’t understand the phone, I am still unable to do everything, just like before, but I have the added bonus of constantly being afraid I’ll break it.

Tired of this tech hell and feeling dazed, I came home and curled up with my sweet little white Mac, writing, emailing, Facebook stalking and, low and behold, my phone of the future cannot talk with my computer of 2008. WTH! That’s okay. Just breathe. I’m good with that. Except, oh yeah, my wonderful little laptop, who has traveled with me and been by my side for years took issue with having the space age phone try to initiate foreplay with it and sent me the black question mark of death. Thus, I traveled BACK to Apple and just handed over the deed to my house to them for yet another purchase. Oh, you want another little white laptop? Guess what, DON’T FREAKIN’ MAKE THEM ANYMORE! Wake up, lady, we’re all stainless steel now, just like the dishwasher you had to replace last year and the stove that is a bitch to keep clean even though you never use it.

I can’t keep up with technology. I just want to get something, stick with it and have it work on some basic level. I don’t need my appliances to converse with me or each other. In fact, I’d prefer they wouldn’t. That little song my washer sings when it’s through? I don’t want my refrigerator singing something back. They could be talking about me.

Washer: Did you see the giant ass in these jeans I just washed?

Refrigerator: No duh, she’s in here every 10 minutes.

Dishwasher: I can’t keep up with all these wine glasses!

Oven: I feel so unloved. She never even glances at me!

While my old car is out there, sleeping in the driveway, saying nothing because it can’t. It’s just a car, like it’s supposed to be. This is the age of the rise of the machines. We should all be very afraid.

and a possum in the dishwasher

Tag Archives: phones

My Angry Rant against Comcast

Candy Crush Shame

The Giant Umbilical Cord

Rise of the Machines