Wednesday, January 16, 2008

My Kingdom for a Phone

Today was to be the day that nice technicians from the phone company came to fix our telephones and our interwebs, restoring hope, peace and prosperity to the people of our great household. Alas, it was not to be.

As it happens, the series of tubes through which the internet runs to my house (Hah! And you all thought Ted Stevens was a crazypants!) are full of water. Our personal aquifer has corroded our phone cable so impressively as to destroy voice capabilities and leave the interweb hanging by one tenuous little thread that jiggles ominously when the garbage trucks go by on Mondays.

The very nice army of phone technicians (and to give them their due here, they were all absolutely fabulous) couldn't actually run a line through the phone conduit due to some sort of anomaly at each end. Before I had a chance to worry about all of the names my neighbors would call me if their garages needed digging up, the guys had tested every phone line to all of my neighbors. And they're all shorting out, too. We're like the first robins of spring, except more doomalicious.

My pet theory is that since all of this started at approximately the time of the earthquakes back in October, it's probably related. I think that's more likely to be true if the rumor I've heard about the conduit being made of PVC is true. And really, maybe the builder didn't cut as many corners on the telecom infrastructure as they did on so much of the rest of this place though I've got 5 different colors of off-white paint on one wall of my den that suggest otherwise. Ugh. Words can not begin to express how glad I am to be RENTING.

Thank you for reading my rant. I have no telephone, and spotty DSL. My life could be much worse. For now, calls are still being routed from the home number to the cell phone (I think), and the coffee shop up the way has free wifi...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"doomalicious"?? Could it be that the California Ground Gremlins are at work and you are unjustly accusing the builders?

SWE said...

We've actually got a call in to Homeland Security regarding the CGG. This is a little south and west of their traditional territory, but one can never be too careful.

On a more serious note, I do think it's entirely possible that a reasonable job by the builders was undone by the earthquakes this fall. I think it's more likely that a fair-to-middling job by the builders was undone by said earthquakes, though.