B is for Bah!

I was having trouble with my wireless modem, having to reset it with increasing frequency until I reached the point where I got sick enough of doing that to make the dreaded call to my Internet Service Provider, Telus.  I hate – hate! – calling Telus for anything.  Not because they don’t provide good service, but because that stupid robot that answers the phone makes me nuts.  I do not want to converse with a robot; it brings out the devil in me and, just for the fun of it, I will often say things that I know she (she? That’s a whole other blog!) doesn’t understand.  And more often than not, they are not nice words.  (Though I do enjoy throwing things at her like prestidigitation, because, you know, it’s not a word that I get to use in regular conversation much.)  She eventually gives up and informs me that she is going to connect me to a real person, which is what I want in the first place.  It further annoys me that she doesn’t even bother to get annoyed with me about it. 

Anyway, I made the call, managed not to be rude to the robot and was connected with a very helpful Telus employee of the Homo Sapiens variety who kindly agreed to send me a new modem.  We both fully believed that the modem was the problem.

A shiny new modem arrived in my mailbox a couple of days later and I rushed home after work to hook it up.  It worked beautifully.

For about 3 minutes.

(You will now see the reason for the topic of this blog.)

“BAH!”

That was three weeks ago.  Since then I have spent a total of six hours on the phone with various Telus employees and techs (who I assume are also employees, but somehow are deserving of being distinguished as the wizards they are) who performed all the remote magic they could before finally resigning themselves and appointing the grand Wizard, himself, to the job. 

Enter Gareth. 

Gareth is “the Telus guy”.  By that I mean he’s the guy in the van with the tools (and a cute Telus animal painted on the side) who comes right to your house and fixes things.  Gareth arrived at 10:30 last Thursday morning and spent about an hour and a half doing his tech wizard magic, eventually getting the Internet connection to stay connected.  He made one mistake.  He left me is business card with his cell number on it and told me (fully believing that I never would) to call him any time if I had any trouble at all with the Internet.

Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.  Gareth was my new hero.

Two hours after his departure….

“Bah!”

Now I should probably tell you that Bah! was not what I wanted to say.  However, my more colourful vocabulary is currently hog-tied and gagged in a secret basement room where it cannot offend or corrupt the innocent ears of my seven-year-old niece who is staying with me while her parents are in China.   I’ve been forced to use words like darn and shoot and patootie and, of course BAH! a lot.   Especially during the last nine days while I’ve been Aunty Momming and doing my best to be a good example. 

And so I called Gareth.  Yes, I checked the lights on the modem and the important ones were out.  Yes, it’s back on again, but it was out.  For seven minutes.   Right in the middle of Ripper Street.   Okay, I’ll tough it out until Tuesday.  But, please, please try to fit me in again.  Thank you.  Thank you.

The seven minute outage must have been a test to see if I would break and release my colourful vocabulary from its basement bondage.  I’m proud to say that I passed the test.

Until Monday.

Monday at precisely 11:50 a.m. the Internet went down again.  And stayed down for most of the rest of the day, only flashing on for a few seconds here and there. 

Bah!  Bah!  Bah!

Today, however, Gareth kept his promise and returned to my house.  He brought with him a Wizard-in-training named Collin and together they discovered some interesting things about the wiring in my house.  It was rather creative.  How and why it worked for as long as it did is a mystery that neither Gareth nor Collin can explain.  Not that it matters.  What matters is that they possessed the technical magic to re-create the wiring in a less interruptive and more efficient way.   They firmly believe that they have solved the problem and that I will never (at least not in the foreseeable future) have to shout Bah! at my computer or call Gareth’s cell phone again.  (Touch wood)

They did tell me that they are putting me on their special list.  I wasn’t quite sure how to take that until Collin explained that they keep a list of places that are in need of further upgrades and will return as soon as they can to complete them.

Whew.  I’d hate to be on the PIA (I’ll let you work that one out) special list.