Modem Operandi

Well, the damn thing is working as you can tell. Verizon sent my new modem which was about 1/4 of the size of the last one (from 2002). Pretty soon those things will be the size of a dime.

I plugged all the wires and cables and ...nothing. The only screen I had said I must reactivate the account which should only take 15 minutes. (For the love of all things holy and good, I hate this company.)

Midway through the activation process, it freezes and gives me the tech support phone number. I dial and figure that I could get a few hours of sleep before connecting to someone, however much to my surprise a very nice woman comes on the line. For all my troubles, let me just say that Verizon has some of the nicest tech support people. (Verizon---you need to pay them more.)

We spent the equivalent of a first date together with neither of us having felt the slightest bit violated. She walked me through everything until we talked about passwords.

"What password are you using?" she asked.

"The one the guy gave me last week when we discovered the modem was broken."

"Hmmm, our passwords are only good for 24 hours. I think we found the problem."

"Thank God. My fans were getting restless. I write a blog and everyone was really missing me. I promise to write good things about you tonight."

"Great. Just make me younger...and single."

Our first date and she's already leaving me for another guy.