Thursday This and loads of That

Okay, so here's a little glimpse into my week so far...

Monday started out normal enough.  I got up, drank coffee, did internet things, called Mom, and then went fishing.  When I got home, Hubs told me the internet went out at about 9:30am but that he'd already called the ISP about it.  He gave me a break down of how the call went, because it's my job to handle all things tech, and everything was hunky-dory.  Except it wasn't.  Tuesday morning, still no internet.  I called for an update and quickly learned that the guy Hubs had spoken to - the one who said 'technicians are aware of the problem and working to resolve it' - never put in a ticket for our issue.  Okee, fine.  The gal I talked to put in a ticket and said someone would be out at the latest Wednesday morning. 

Ack.  But still.  I was patient.  About 3pm, a tech showed up.  And was totally stumped.  He swapped out our modem.  Nope.  He checked our box at the house.  Nope.  He checked the box at the intersection.  Nope.  He was on the phone with other tech people who were insisting that our DSL was, in fact, up and running.  Except it wasn't.  Back to the box on the house.  Then he disappeared for about a half hour.  When he comes back, he does not look happy.  He informs us that Monday at approx 9:30am, a different tech had come to our neighborhood with a disconnect order for a different address and disconnected our DSL by mistake.  Umm, right. 

So, on the ground tech dude tells us about our new modem - to let it cycle for 30 minutes and then start the configuration process.  Then he leaves.  We let it cycle and begin the process.  And hit a wall.  Something is totally farqued up because it will only let us be online for 5-10 minutes at a time and then we have to reboot the modem again.  I call tech support again.  The dude there runs me through a bunch of stuff, tells me he configured my modem remotely and assures me that I won't have any more problems.  I say thanks and goodbye and hang up.  Less than 2 minutes later, no internet again. 

I am loathe to call again, so I try chatting with support.  It kicks me offline again.

I suck it up and call tech support again.  This time, I get Marie.  Marie runs me through everything again, assures me that it should all be working fine and promises to call me back in a half hour.  We hang up and the damn thing kicks me offline again. 

Thirty minutes goes by with no call and I am kicking myself for being so damn naive.  At 45 minutes, the phone rings and it's Marie!  Yay!  I tell her everything that I observed in the interim and she runs some remote checks on my new modem.  It's a piece of crap.  She offers to send me a new one, but who knows how long that'll take.  I say to her 'I still have the old modem and it was working fine, can we use that one?'  She assured me that we can and we begin the configuration process for that.  But it's not working.  It keeps fucking up and neither of us can figure out WTH is going on.  Then she puts me on hold for a good amount of minutes.  When she comes back, she has an answer.  We walk through everything again, but slightly different this time.  Huzzah and hurray, it's working!  She offers to call back again, but by this time it's after 9pm and I am bushed.  So she gives me some specific verbiage to use if I have to call about this issue again to cut through all the red tape.  Yay.  I am happy.

We go to bed.

At 1:49am, I wake up and open my eyes.  Can't see a goddamn thing.  I mean nothing.  Zip.  And for a half a second I think "OMG, I'm blind" but then common sense kicks in and I realize it's just a power outage.  But I can't go back to sleep.  It's so black it actually hurts my eyes.  Hubs is up, too, so we hang out for a bit, having a smoke and getting out the blackout gear - LED lantern, flashlights, etc.  Finally, we go back to bed, using my Kindle as a nightlight.  Still had a hard time falling asleep, but at least the blackness wasn't crushing.

Wake up at 5:30. Still no power.  Hubs eventually makes me some coffee using the grill.  I call the electric company and get an automated message that they know we're without power.  Okee, fine.  We listen to the radio.  No news of this.  Eventually, I realize that the power company must have a pretty huge outage if their initial greeting informs customers they know we're without power.  I go back to bed, because duh.  Hubs falls asleep in the chair.  About 10, we wake up and decide to go out into the world in search of power and food.

The gas station about 5 miles east is powerless, too, so we head north, assuming that the power company's range only extends a little ways into MO.  About halfway to town, we notice lights on homes, so we're feeling pretty good.  We got to town, ate breakfast at the new restaurant, and headed home.  On  the way home, we're seeing lights on closer houses now.  The gas station is back up.  the street light there is one, too, so we're thinking 'Yay!'

Then we get home and we still have no power.  But now we also have no phones.  I look at Hubs and tell him I'm going back to bed because duh, and he agrees.  I wake up about 2pm and wander into the living room, snatch my cellphone, and try calling out.  I picked Mom, because who else would I want to take to?  Huzzah, the phone lines are open.  We talk for a while and then I remember that I was going to try the electric company again.

Finally I get through to the electric company.  The gal there tells me that they have all the crews out, plus other crews from other places, but like 40 poles are down and that doesn't include places where the poles are up but the lines are down, so they're hoping to get us power again by Thursday night.  But it might not be until Friday.  Not happy news. 

Hubs wakes up.  I tell him the not happy news.  And we begin cataloguing our resources and determining whether we need to go to a motel for the night.  In the end, we decide to weather it out.  We have enough water for flushing toilets and washing hands and brushing teeth.  We have outlets to get more water if need be.  And the frozen stuff is still mostly frozen.  We plan a big barbeque for Thursday to take care of thawed meats.  We eat the ice cream because duh.

I'm out in the back having a smoke about 4:15pm while Hubs is outside feeding the wildlife.  He comes back inside and I hear him shout, but I don't make out what he said.  He shouts again 'look at the clock', and sure enough, the clock is flashing!  We have power!  Life is good.

I'm afraid to look at the modem.  Hubs eventually does and sure enough, we have internet, too.  We were so happy!

The end.

If you've stayed with me this far, I just want to thank the hard working people at Carroll Electric for under-promising and over-delivering on getting us back to civilization. And a huge thanks to Marie at CenturyLink for proving there are still capable people in the world who care about their work.  Marie spent over 90 minutes on the phone with me when she could've foisted me off on someone else, and she did it all with poise and grace.  I'd also like to slap a certain unnamed tech in the back of the head and give a certain lying support dude a poke in the eye.  But it's all good now.