The sight of a Verizon van outside my door has become such a regular occurrence these days that I am sure my neighbors think I’m having an affair. If only life were that uncomplicated!

But the sad truth is… all I want is my MTV… and my internet access and my phone. Now is that too much to ask? I’m beginning to think so.

It all began innocently enough when I moved and found that my old friend, Comcast, does not service my new neighborhood. So I decided to give Verizon a try.

They were scheduled to hook me up in late July and I couldn’t wait to get my blazing fast internet connection. I had to be home that day from 8am till 5pm for the installation (which I’d been told would take 4 - 6 hours), but by noon the technician had told me the bad news. I wasn’t going to have internet that day.

A few days later another technician showed up. “Are you here to set up my lightning fast fiber-optic internet, phone and TV?” “No mam, I am the surveyor here to mark where the new line has to go.” And he proceeded to draw lines and markings all over the property.

A few days after that another technician showed up. “Are you here to set up my lightning fast fiber-optic internet, phone and TV?” “No mam, I am the surveyor here to mark where the gas and eclectic lines are so the crew laying your line doesn’t cut through them.”

A couple of days later, I hear my husband excitedly call out “Honey, Verizon is here!” I ran outside (by now I have gone into serious online withdrawal and am feeling a tad desperate). “Please tell me you’re here to set up my lightning fast fiber-optic internet, phone and TV” “No mam, I am the surveyor here to mark where existing fiber-optic lines are so that the crew laying your line doesn’t cut through them.” By now my yard looks like a multi-colored checkerboard.

About a week later I was sitting looking out my window, daydreaming about the day that I would once again be online, when I was met by a toothless grin looking back at me. I jumped! Who the heck was that?

So I went outside and there were 2 vans and a crew of 7 here to lay my fiber-optic line. Whoo Hooo! But don’t get too excited for me ’cause they seemed clueless. They kept asking dumb questions that, even to a novice like me, seemed real obvious - like “Do you know where the electricity comes into your house?” Could it possibly be that big fat cable that terminates in what looks like an electrical junction box that’s stuck right there on the wall? (I was concerned.)

But the Dumbest Question Award goes to the toothless grinner who knocked on my neighbor’s door and asked if he could borrow a knife! I kid you not. Her immediate thought, which remained unspoken, was “to stab me with?” I mean, what stranger comes to your door asking for a knife? When she asked him why he needed to borrow a knife when there were 2 vans in the driveway (didn’t they have any tools in those vans?) he apparently didn’t understand any English beyond that and left… knifeless.

By the end of the day the competent team had succeeded in cutting through one neighbor’s fiber optic line so he now had no internet, phone or TV (misery loves company). And when my other neighbor came home that evening she came knocking on my door to find out if I knew why her phone line might be dead. Oooops - looks like they cut through her line too.

If Verizon wants to save some money, maybe they should do away with having surveyors! As for me - well I’m still dreaming about the day I’ll have that lightning fast super-duper internet connection, but for now it’s off to Starbucks.

Tags: comcast, fiber optic, fiber optic tv, having an affair, internet access, mtv, starbucks, verizon

This entry was posted on August 25, 2007 - 12:15 pm and is filed under Every Mama Needs.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.