Time travel?

Call me crazy, but I am convinced there is a gremlin running rampant around this country killing people's internet connections. Mine was toasted, one of our newspaper's columnist had his killed, and several bloggers that I read have had problems. People - guard your internet connection!

I think it must be a gremlin from India! My reasoning is simple. Everyone else had been routed to India for tech help. Isn't technology wonderful. Press one button on your telephone and you are transported to the mysterious India is mere seconds.

I thought I was going to be immune to this magical process. The last time I had to call my ISP, it was answered right here in the good old USA. Either that or the person I spoke with had taken one of the jobs in India.

Yesterday when I called, I was transported. Among the multitude of organ failures I am experiencing (ain't old age wonderful) is a loss of hearing. Add a rather scratchy telephone connection and I cannot understand those people over there in IT.

I explained my problem. He told me to type in the letter * like in T%&I()^O. I swear that is what I heard. It could have been a c, b, c or v. I couldn't understand his word either. As the instructions continued and I kept guessing letters and he kept giving me unintelligible answers, I swear I heard laughter in the background. It wasn't funny people.

It especially funny because I was messing around in the REAL programming of my computer. He had me going to "start" and "run" then going from C prompt. Now the average person can do real damage when they get to the C prompt and begin messing with the programming of his computer.

I wondered when he was going to tell me to take the cover off of the computer and disconnect straps - as I have had to do with that "American made in Texas computer."

That didn't happen - thankfully. But when we finally got to the point where I was going to reprogram the computer, the response from my aged (and I guess by now learned) computer was to time us out. He then said he was going to call another department and would I please hold. Sure, it's only our dinner burning in the oven since I had been on the phone for 30 minutes. G loves burnt offerings.

Well, of all things the next person on the line apparently was here in the USA, either that or she had also moved to India. She took the much less invasive approach to solving the problem. I only had to unplug cables from the modem, turn the computer off and reattach those cables. What took the time is rebooting the computer. As I said, she is old and grumpy. She doesn't like to start running either.

To sum it up - there in internet in the office, the router still is off, and I am using the unsecured WiFi from my neighbor. But the tax program is installed and registered so G should be happy. I can still use the laptop, and I didn't have to reprogram either computer - yet.

Have a happy weekend!