Once again, Hubby made his trek to the Rocky Mountain State where he spent two weeks with his sister and her husband and their many dogs. Some people might wonder at why I don't join him. What kind of marriage is this? He vacations for two solid weeks without me?
Yeah, well, there are a couple reasons I don't go along.
1) He's got infinitely more vacation time than I do.
2) If I went with him, I wouldn't have super fun posts like this one about how much nonsense happens when he's away.
In the past it's been the children who have waited for this two week period to dump massive, life changing stuff on me while I'm alone and my back up is on a mountain. Most recently, Peaches moved out of the house two years ago. But I swear those two just wait until hubby is out of the house to ask things like, "Can I start taking birth control for fun?" (Six years ago...) "By the way did you know I skipped out of all my gym classes using those crappy crutches I got at a rummage sale?" (Five years ago.) "Oh yeah, has the school office called you yet?" (Both kids...numerous times...it's the first week of school, seriously?) I could go on, but the list is pretty long and shocking.
Anyway, this year, Hubby sat both children down (I mean they're 23 and 20...so a lot of the stuff that destroyed me in the past isn't even a thing to worry about now.) and he made them promise not to do or say anything that was going to send me into a tizzy.
Hubby should have put that command a little further out into the universe. Things went...awry.
So here's the top five nonsensical things that happened probably BECAUSE hubby was gone.
5) The Internet, and therefore the HULU went out.
Recently the family "cut the cable" and moved to Hulu Live for TV. We also got an antenna for local stations. (HD Antenna guaranteed to get signals up to 75 miles away.) This system has been working GREAT for the past month. And by GREAT I mean I love Hulu live for what little live TV I actually watch. The antenna, not so much. It works for about 20 minutes and then we lose signal.
So a week ago Tuesday Skippy complained that the Wifi was out. The children are the basement dwellers and the wifi, especially for Skippy in his fortress of solitude, is not perfect. I didn't put too much credence on it until I started getting messages on the TV that Hulu was not connecting.
Well, our Internet service is through my very favorite people in the world TIME WARNER CABLE NOW CALLED SPECTRUM. (Yeah...you can call it what you want, it's still crappy Time Warner service.) And Time Warner had taken it upon themselves to shut down our Internet for our own protection.
Gee...I didn't realize my Hulu needed a babysitter.
I tried something new. I tried the virtual assistant. That was virtually a waste of time so then I did the live chat. After 40 minutes it became abundantly clear that THAT was a waste of time. So I called a live human person. (At this point it's 11 PM on a school night and I'm sweating the way a fluffy girl does when she's annoyed.) This time I got a guy named Very Nice Jason who actually seemed to solve the problem. He told me to run three separate scans on the computer once a week and that our service was restored.
All was well in the kingdom!
4) What you're telling me would have more effect if you weren't so messy.
Saturday my mom and I did the Waukesha Farmers Market like we do most Saturdays. On this fine morning a woman came up and I recognized her. She'd purchased a couple of my books. Well, this time she stepped right around my table (A Farmer's Market faux pas) and she said, "I want to talk to you about your book."
Turns out, there were some editing flaws. 57, to be exact. She'd put sticky notes in the book noting each one. She told me she wanted her money back and, as a parting shot, she told me I had no business selling books ever.
That's pretty serious stuff and it hurt. I mean, as a self published author, getting an editor you can trust to do a good job is not easy. I've hired and fired a couple in the past, and apparently the one who did the three books in question really did a far worse job than I initially thought. My mom, who is now my editor because 1) I trust her and 2) She has the patience and the eye for line editing, sat down and looked up each of the flaws. We fixed them. We also fixed the flaws in the other books.
Here's the thing: Given the high righteous indignation of the woman at the market, I would have thought she'd be one of those people who treated books like treasures. You know, you never touch a book with dirty hands. You never leave a book upside down and open to mark your page. You never, EVER EVER eat or drink while reading? Because when someone is griping out the cleanliness of the book print, and one wants a full refund, one should be mindful of what they're doing with the book, right?
Not in this lady's case. Nope. The book had coffee stains on pages and worse yet, some of the pages stuck together with some sort of candy residue.
BUT, as I said, this alerted me to an editing problem that was far worse than I suspected and therefore we've fixed it. That lady thinks she destroyed me...but she actually helped me AND gave me something for the blog.
And all was well in the kingdom!
3) You can take my wifi, but you can't take my PACKER GAME!
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| Go ahead, try and hide your real name! |
So on Sunday I was all ready to watch my BELOVED Green Bay Packers play the first game of the season. AND I was excited to watch the game on HULU live.
And then Skippy came upstairs and announced that he'd gotten the message from TIME WARNER NOW KNOWN AS SPECTRUM that they'd shut down our Internet AGAIN for our own protection.
Oh no you don't!
So I called again, only this time instead of getting very Nice Jason I got Not Very Nice Someone who, after about five minutes, told me he couldn't help me because I hadn't proven I was a named person on the account.
This is an issue I have with Time Warner. I AM a named person on the account. BUT, since Hubby's name is first, that's all they see and therefore I feel like it's 1955 and I have to wait until my husband gets home for anything to get done because they can't deal with women.
To add insult to injury, the guy hung up on me.
I called back. This time I got Even Less Nice Nikki. Nikki refused to acknowledge that anything I'd been told to do on Tuesday by Nice Jason was something she could walk me through. She did, so graciously, turn on my Internet again, but she told me I had to call back and talk to technical support. I asked, "aren't YOU technical support?"
"No," says she, "I'm customer service."
Well you're doing a bang up job!
But the Internet was back and all was well with the kingdom!
2) And this might be why we don't have block parties.
My parents are in the process of getting my grandparents' house ready for sale. This has involved a ton of yard work (Hubby's been helping) and landscaping, which my aunt thinks is necessary, but whatever. So on Sunday before the Packer Game they were headed over to move some lawn waste and whatnot. They stopped by to pick up something, although I can't recall what at this point because they've stopped by to pick up a lot lately.
As they were getting into their car, having loaded whatever it was from my house into their vehicle, my mom told me, in very loud tones, that she was supporting her back with her maternity girdle. AND THEN she yanked up her shirt and showed me.
That thing is 50 years old.
We were laughing and I said that yes, I wore mine (They are super back support) until it fell apart. And then Mom says, "Well mine did, too, but I sewed a new panel in the crotch and I'm good to go."
My father is a man who doesn't like ruckus or a show...and this was sort of both right there in front of my neighbor's houses.
Mom got into the car, still laughing, and said, "There, put that in your blog!"
Dad said, "Who's going to read it?"
Only everyone...
And all was well with the kingdom.
1) What is it, you say, you do here?
Once the Packer game was over, I decided to tackle this Internet thing head on. I sat down and called the TIME WARNER NOW KNOWN AS SPECTRUM number AGAIN and asked for Technical Support.
There was a long pause on the other end. "Who told you to ask for that?"
Because this is completely normal with this company. "Nikki."
"Ok...." The guy did NOT sound like that was the right answer.
A minute later I got a guy...and at this point I don't even care what his name was. He put me through the same Spanish Inquisition proving I am who I said I was. (Are people really calling Time Warner and pretending to be someone else? What kind of sick, twisted, masochist would do that?)
I spent thirty minutes on the phone with this guy, discussing routers and boosters and all of that. And after 30 minutes the guy says this:
"I'm not an expert. You're going to have to call someone else."
WHAT????????????????????????????????????????
You are the technical support of my internet provider. If you don't know what to do, who does? What, exactly, is your job then?
"See, you don't have one of our routers."
No, we don't. The last time I allowed Time Warner equipment into my house, we had to go to their store every 5 weeks to get a new one because it kept not working.
"So you have to call someone else."
Ten minutes later I was on the phone with a man from Linksys. This man is in India, and his name is Mani Maren. I'm giving him a shout out because once I started talking to him, no matter what happened (phone call was disconnected three times and he called back every time) he stuck with me until we got the service fixed and going again. It took more than an hour, but Mani stuck with me and in the end, I told him if he was ever in Wisconsin, he should look me up, I'd make him dinner.
Well, I mean, I should really have Hubby make him dinner. You know, because we want to thank the guy, not make him eat my attempt at cooking.
And all is again well in the kingdom!
So, Hubby returns tomorrow afternoon. I'm fairly certain nothing else can happen, although the cars have all been behaving a little too well...and I do have another Farmer's Market tomorrow....
Obviously your Farmers Market book lady is related to Elsie. :)
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