Green Acres or...

Green Acres or The Shining? You decide....
Welcome to Crazytown.

You most likely have heard that Colorado has had quite a bit of rain.
It's true.
The front range of Colorado has been horribly hit. Fortunately I am in South Central Colorado and have been spared any flooding.  We have had plenty of rain, though.

Magnificent graphic of Colorado.

We are where the phone is. 

The rain is under the umbrella.

Sunday afternoon the girls were trying to do their homework online when shouts of "Where's the internet?" echoed through the cabin.

I unplugged, replugged, prayed, cursed, unplugged some more and finally admitted that, since it was pouring down rain, the internet was probably out for a bit. Our internet service comes via Satellite and is very finicky.

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We packed up laptops and iPads and headed to McDonalds for free WiFi and a cookie or two. While there I looked up the number of our internet provider because somehow I did not have it at home. (I even checked our phone book.)  Homework got done and all we needed was to print out a few papers. I was sure that could be accomplished back at home. (Besides, there was no place else to do any printing on a Sunday night.)

Well, guess what? The printer would not work without the internet even after I plugged it directly into the computer. And because we had no internet, I could not look up any possible solutions or manuals.

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Belle was stressing. She had papers that needed turning in Monday morning.
Bunny was fed up with being Belle's IT person.
I was fed up and stressing because everyone else was looking to me for solutions.

And I had none.

Monday dawned and it was at least mostly clear.
But things started going downhill pretty quickly.

Still no internet.
I called the provider and got a recording. "We are closed due to flooding. We will get to service repairs as soon as possible."
Okay, no problem. Remember? Last week I had ordered DSL and that was supposed to be in service by Monday afternoon. Five pm at the LATEST.
Except I had not received my modem that was promised on Friday.

A call to my phone company, Century Link, was little help. They couldn't tell me to what address they had sent the modem. But they did show it out for delivery.

I was starting to get a little panicky. And maybe a little anxious. I had no internet. No television. No cell phone. My landline was working at least. But it had no answers.

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In the midst of trying to find out where the modem was, and when the service would really be live....
my neighbor comes to the door.
I'm trying to listen to the phone recording while simultaneously acknowledging my neighbor who is holding a bucket of rusty water.
"Para Español, oprima nueve."
"Look at this water that came through the hole in the roof on my shed."
"For technical support, press two."
"See? It's full of those chemicals from the chemtrails I was telling you about. The government has been spraying us."
"Please enter your account number followed by the pound sign."

I mutter "That's interesting" as I wave off the neighbor and hang up and start over with the voice mail.

I don't care if I'm being poisoned, just give me some internet service.

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I'm starting to feel a panic attack coming on.

I'm isolated. I can't get anyone to answer any of my questions. Nothing is working like it should.

Another phone call to Century Link and I discover that the modem has been delivered to the empty house next door.

Service was PROMISED at 5pm. At 5:30pm I called CenturyLink back. "Where's my DSL?"

A very nice person put me on hold, then returned  and promised it would be on by 6:00pm.  I reviewed what I had been promised the  week before only to be told "o no, that's not what we have."
The prices were wrong, the delivery address was wrong, the service wasn't active. Another hour on the phone (remember? it was one hour and 2 minutes last week) and I had pricing sorted out, service promised as soon as I hooked up the modem and Direct TV ordered to boot.

I realized if I was stir crazy after a few days of rain and no internet, I probably would not fare well once it got cold and snowy. Diversion will be required.  The one radio station I receive was not going to suffice. Give me 150 channels so I can watch two of them.

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Off the phone, back to hooking up the DSL modem and....
red lights.
No service.

I call again to Century Link- the fourth time on Monday- and am told that the service won't be active until Tuesday. The request was done incorrectly the first time and when it was redone on Monday afternoon that set things back a day.

"Really???"
"Yes, really."

I started to cry.

This morning the Satellite internet came back up and that is what I am using now.


I called Century Link again and was promised DSL would be active by 8:00pm.
It's not.

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And to top it off, the little Hummer was supposed to be ready this morning and I still have heard nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.   Five weeks and that baby is still not back.

I'm one step away from scribbling "REDRUM" on the doors.

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