Cable and Internet in our neighborhood is spotty.
I sometimes think we should specialize in dropped calls, channel black-outs, and error messages instead of boasting about our community pool and our shiny, enforced “No Soliciting” signs.
Last year, I once had to call the cable company because we had continually dropped service for two weeks. During the debacle, I realized that the company wouldn’t charge me for days, weeks, or months in which they had been unable to provide service.
And because it’s terribly frustrating to lose Internet for days on end – especially when you work online – I always took them up on that. I call every time there’s an issue now.
So last week, unable to use the Internet and with less channels on TV than public-access, I called.
They went through all the rigmarole about my password and identity and birth-weight of my first-born child.
And then they asked me my address.
And I answered.
The line got quiet. The customer-service representative might as well have screeched “Huh?” through the phone; the silence was so deafening.
“Ma’am,” she said. “We’re a Georgia branch. That’s not a Georgia address.”
And she was right. It wasn’t. It wasn’t our current Georgia address. It wasn’t the Georgia address we had three years ago.
It wasn’t even the South Carolina address we had before that.
It was the Florida address we had. Four addresses ago.
I prattled it off like I’ve been living there for the last six years, despite us moving three times in that same time frame.
“Ma’am, are you military?” she asked.
Still shocked, I did manage to eke out my normal, “No. My husband is.”
While I am always impressed I can remember the addresses of all our homes in the last decade, it’s odd to revert like that, even for a tired Mom like me.
It’s the first time I’ve ever done that, in fact.
Luckily, the woman brought me back to present-day, where I remembered my correct address and received a deduction on my monthly bill since Internet service was yet again non-existent.
Later that day, the service had been restored. And then 30 minutes later, it promptly dropped again.
Tired Mom rearing her ugly head, I called back, and due to a crazy stroke of luck, I got the same customer service representative.
She asked how she could help me.
“Well, earlier I gave you my old, old Florida address. Now I know why,” I said. “Because that was the last place I could finish writing an e-mail without my Internet service giving out. I’d like to go back to that, if you don’t mind.”
