Installment Five: Saga of the Search for Speedy Internet

Catch up reading Intro, One, Two, Three, and Four first. K?
It makes this all the more painful. Trust me.

So I did my duty. I waited a month.

In fact, it was more than a month. It's now July. At about 6 weeks after my last contact with a real person, a real nice person in the form of Max the Technician Guy, over my eligibility for better-than-dialup internet, I phone the secret number. I get an auto-answering message. So I leave what I hope is a credible and understandable summary of the situation (yeah, I know, how to condense it all in 30 seconds? Not possible...but I tried).

No reply.

So more time goes by. Another week. I call again. Same message on the other end but I only leave my name and phone number.

More time.

I call again and hang up when I get the message. I try the put-in-your-number on the BCC website to see-what-services-you-can-have thing just for the helluvit, and its pronouncement is: Dialup.

Then it hits me that I still have this stupid useless hunk of a plastic piece o' poo modem sitting here. !! Wasn’t I supposed to get a return kit so I could send the thing back?

I call regular main BCC number. I explain that I want to return my portable internet modem, give my particulars, and "No I Am Not Going To Try Anything To Get It To Work Right Now," I say. Because I’ve been there.

Yep. So been there.

Then the guy says: "The System says you have a rural modem." So I explain that no, the technician came out but didn’t find a signal so we never got a rural modem.

Oh, fine, he will send out the kit then. Did I want anything else today?

I choke out the request for dialup. I get connected overseas. I hear that dialup will cost me $26 a month.

WHAT?! I am not amused.

The guys says, “But it’s unlimited.”

So???? It’s dialup. I kinda need to use the phone sometimes! (And on the most heavily used months on my current plan I’ve only gone over ONCE and even then I only paid $17.) I can’t deal with the whole thing so I hang up on the guy. Sorry.

That night there’s a message on my phone from some Christine. She says she sees here that we want to return a rural modem but they don’t do that--you have to take them down yourself and if I have any questions to please call.

I'm Speechless.

At a complete loss for words. I mean, I can hardly speak. In fact, I just can’t deal with it. I do not give her a call.

And so I remained
ever still
a techno peasant.

[Go to Installment Six]