Tech Support Killed My Phone's Battery

Mike has his own computer. A laptop. Mind you he is a complete computer illiterate, but he likes to go online and check his email and download music and such. Of course I always have to go help him every time because he forgets how to do everything between sessions, but nonetheless he has his own computer.

When he got his computer we purchased a wireless router and I was pretty proud of myself for installing it and setting up a network. However, the rotten little router has been temperamental and inexplicably will lose the connection. I generally unplug it, let it sit a while, plug it all back in and we're good to go again. Not so this last time. I tried everything and we even called in our tech-savvy nephew to look at it, but it just wouldn't work.

Mike has been all worked up because he hasn't been able to use his laptop, so today he proposes that we go buy a new router. I am not willing to give up until I've tried everything, so I go online for troubleshooting, and the install guide, and the upgrade, etc. No luck. I finally decide to call tech support.

I end up talking to a nice East Indian fellow, and we go through a lot of unplugging and ip configs, and resetting with no luck. I am on the phone an hour by now, and he decides he needs to send me to a level 2 tech. The level 2 tech comes on with an even heavier accent, and away we go again...unplug, replug, ip config, ping something or other, connection status blah blah blah, and by the third time we do this I tell him, "Ok I'm done, I'm going to trash this piece of flip [router] and go get a new one. Seriously, I've had it." He convinces me to hang in there through one more attempt and to restart my computer and Viola! finally it works!

He explains to me that the computer wasn't communicating with the router even though the router was communicating with the computer. So the computer was sulking because it didn't like the router for some reason and it was saying "Lalalalalala, I'm not listening." or some such as I understand it, and somehow this dude in India was able to persuade it, or slap it upside the head via the phone line and get it to cooperate with the router again. It only took 113 minutes on the phone. By the end of the call my ear hurt, I was starving for lunch, and the phone battery was dying.

But it was successful and Mike can get online again now. It wasn't even 5 minutes before he was asking me for help, just like old times!

I made myself a tuna sandwich then went to my favorite Cake Wrecks blog and found these two entries: Fireman cake, and Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys. Honest to Pete, I laughed so hard I was snorting and had tears running down my face. I don't know if it was because I was so rummy from my marathon tech support session or if these entries are actually that funny.