I’m pretty sure it was Jerome’s first day on the job. Unfortunately, his technical skills, or lack thereof, were only exacerbating my mounting level of stress. The full moon didn’t help either. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I'd sprouted hair, fangs, claws, and secreted really bad body odor. I could imagine myself hurling everything in the room in a blind rage.
Instead, I politely said no problem when Jerome asked me to hold for the tenth time.
Let me back up a bit.
An irate relative decided to send me a computer virus wrapped innocuously in a normal-looking email envelope. I clicked on the envelope and flashing symbols went wild. I was infected. I couldn’t click on anything because I didn’t know what was my real security program and what could be a Trojan horse. So I simply shut it down. I made a call to the Microsoft technical support dept. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I’m pretty sure they have a thick file on me. I’ve talked to Ganesh so many times I really should invite him and his family to the next cookout.
Here’s the set-up. I have a cordless phone that’s on its way out. It holds a charge for two hours…tops. I also have a toy cell phone. By toy I mean that I can make and receive calls... and that’s about it. I load minutes and time on it every two months. It’s like a TracFone that criminals use if they don’t want to be traced, only slightly better. It sucks being poor when everyone around you has partaken of the I-Phone Kool-Aid.
There I sat on hold for about an hour waiting for a techie. I had hoped it would be Ganesh, but I got Jerome instead.
I’d turned my computer on prior to the call so I’d have the warning prompt in front of me so I'd be able to relay what it said to whomever would be assisting me. But by the time Jerome answered my screen had gone black showing only my email icon at the top.
He asked me what the prompt said. I told him there wasn’t any prompt, just a black screen.
He asked me to click on start. I told him I only had a black screen.
He asked me to hit enter and tell him what the prompt said. I told him that no matter what I hit I got nothing but a black screen. I told him I couldn’t even end-task out. He wanted to know what I meant by “end task.” I knew I was in trouble.
He asked me to hold. When he returned he told me to turn off the computer, unplug it, then plug it back in and start it up while continuously tapping F8. We tried this 3 times. Still a black screen.
While all of this was happening my tabby Lester [who is the size of a Puma with a disposition that's worse] was breaking stuff in the living room and pulling things out of kitchen cupboards. He suffers from Aggressive Play Behavior. I don’t think Jerome understood the concept of a “pet cat” because he seemed frustrated when I asked him to hold for a second while I squirted Lester with the NoNoPeggy.
When I returned he told me to hold. We were now playing the I'm-putting-YOU-on-hold game. I detected spite in his voice. My phone began to beep. “I can’t hold!!!” I screamed. “My phone is dying! Call me on my cell!” He said he could not do that. He told me I must write down a case number and call back. Midway through the case number my phone died.
I sat at the computer and cried.
After I composed myself, I flipped open my cell phone only to discover I had 60 minutes remaining and two bars of charge.. I called computer support again and was placed on hold. At the half-hour mark I began to panic because I knew by the time someone answered and we went through the whole process again, the phone would die. I closed my cell and cried some more.
Lester ran past with something in his mouth. It was my last roll of toilet paper. I checked the closet to confirm that it indeed was the last roll when there it was. It was like a glowing guardian angel with a holy choir singing around it. It was my plug-in princess phone! And yes, there is a jack RIGHT NEXT to my computer. I listened to the beautiful sound of dial tone… unlimited dial tone, (barring hurricanes and electrical storms, of course.)
I called support again and sat on hold for another 45 minutes but with a much lighter disposition. Imeem took the call. I started to tell her the black-screen-on-hold-phone-dying-cat-from-hell story but she politely interrupted and said, “Tell me vat is wrong with your COMPUTER.” Imeem had me up and running in 25 minutes, not counting the scan that took 3 hours. I will invite her to the cookout as well.
As I wrote this, I lovingly glanced occasionally at my princess phone. I’m thankful for the simple things. I don’t even harbor quite as much resentment for my toy cell and crappy cordless phone.
I can get back to my blog where I like to complain about stuff again. I can write stories on my [currently ] virus-free PC. Life is good.
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