One of the pesky frustrations of living in Lafayette is lousy cell phone coverage. Since we are sentenced here for only a couple months, dealing with charges/fees of getting a landline doesn’t seem to make it worthwhile, especially given all the random-digit dialed calls that still plague us.
Seemingly living in “The Land that Time Forgot”, I see others like myself who stand outside to conduct telephone conversations. However, standing outside isn’t a guarantee of reaching a strong signal for I have had numerous dropped calls regardless of where I stand in my half-acre yard. I haven’t tried standing on the roof yet, but perhaps a signal is stronger there. I do make it a habit of driving to town and initiate phone calls from parking lots of stores on high ground. Apparently, this practice is acceptable to people who live here year-round. Many just shrug when asked about their provider, phone type, and phone package. “Just accept it”.
Local cable TV and internet service seems to have gotten worse, in spite of heavy advertizing suggesting the contrary. In early September, we lost cable and internet service and called the provider, not an easy task given a weak cell signal and the risk of a dropped call. After navigating the myriad of automated menus, we reached a human being who challenged us to repair the problem with his verbal instructions. It was not unlike some perverse game of “Twister”. Failing that, a service representative was scheduled to visit us the following day. The service guy was helpful and repaired old lines here in the house but also found a problem outside that would require a second visit. The latter provides internet service to several other homes in the immediate vicinity. I had to wonder why the short-timer here was the one to notice AND report the lousy internet speed. Perhaps my neighbors too had succumbed to the feeling of “just accept it”.
Deluding ourselves that life was now grand, having cable TV and internet restored, imagine our surprise when a mere six weeks later, cable TV and internet crashed again. Assuming that someone may have hit a tree, temporarily severing the service, we sat back and “just accept[ed] it” for about an hour. Finally, we could tolerate it no longer and picked up the cell phone, braving weak signal, and contacted the service provider. After several minutes of navigating the automated phone tree again, we reached Darnell (a.k.a. Peggy – Thanks Tanya for the correction!!), who asked a bunch of questions, suggesting the typical “control, alt, delete” solution for both the TV and internet. “Peggy” also said that there were no reports of outages in our service area. We knew that the next “solution” would be another dreaded service call at $60 a visit. Aiming for quality customer service, “Peggy” quickly offered us cable/internet insurance, which we turned down (again) and a service call was scheduled for the following day.
We spent the late afternoon and evening “Jonesing” for TV and internet. On an almost hourly basis, John kept turning on the TV, hoping against hope that the service would be restored. After seven hours, service was magically restored. “Whaaaaa”????? Perhaps “Peggy” found the plug that was left lying on the floor somewhere, but for some reason unbeknownst to us, both cable TV and internet were back on.
Trying to keep my OCD in check, I resisted the temptation of getting on the provider’s web site and initiating their version of “chat roulette” to try to find out what caused the seven-hour lack of service. But I figured that “Peggy” and her minions wouldn’t be able to answer the question and instead offer service insurance again. Instead, I too joined the ranks of customers to “just accept it” until my next conversation with Peggy.
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