Fixing the Internet (or call Al Gore)

Sunday evening and the daughter was indignant, “The internet isn’t working,” she called down from the corner upstairs bedroom.  The whole internet or just ours?  I wondered if Al Gore would be available on short notice.  I mean who better to call to fix the internet than the guy who (apocryphally) invented the damn thing.  It had been a long, hard day of moving.  The house was a mess.  There wasn’t one room in the place save the bathrooms that wasn’t piled with boxes and bags.  I’d just been on the internet earlier in the day so I tried to ignore her and hoped the whole issue would go away.  I don’t like fixing electronic things.  Then again I don’t like fixing plumbing things, metal things, wooden things, mechanical things or automotive things.  Yeah, I’m not the DIY guy.  If I ever win the lottery I’m going to put a DIY person on retainer.

A few hours later I went online, or tried to.  I ended up looking into the mug of that little square guy on the screen that tells you that you’re screwed.  The little square guy was telling me in his own annoying, taunting way that the internet wasn’t working.  “Fuck, the internet isn’t working,” I said.  I went through the usual procedure of restarting my computer and clicking on to Google.  There was the little square head.  I flashed back to Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park; “Ah, ah, ah, you didn’t say the magic word.”  Bastard.  Well it was late and so I shut down and went to bed figuring that it was our all too often AT&T outage.  It’ll be okay again in the morning.    

The next evening the daughter had the same complaint – no internet.  I blamed AT&T and told her that I supposed I might have to start shopping internet providers.  In the meantime I suggested that she use her 4G.  “But it’s going to suck up all my data minutes.”  I suggested that she might want to consider a new provider.  “I have unlimited data,” I said dripping with way too much smugness. 

I should probably explain here that I’m the only person I know, with the possible exception of my friend Scott, who doesn’t believe that losing the internet warrants going into DEFCON 5, calling all hands on deck and dialing 911.  If I’m disconnected so much the better.  In fact there are times when I damn Al Gore for (apocryphally) inventing the internet.  So my daughter’s complaints weren’t at the tip top of my to do list. 

On the third evening I tried to log on again and square head was back on the screen telling me that the internet wasn’t working and I’d better get the fucking thing squared away.  Actually it said that there was something wrong with my modem so I got up and went into the room we’ve christened the computer room and noticed that some of the modem lights were out.  I unplugged it, counted to 10 and then plugged it back in.  Give it a few seconds.  Lights were still out.  I told the daughter that the problem was a broken router and I’d have to get a new one the following day. 

Lunch time on Wednesday and I walked over to Fry’s Electronics.  I looked at some of the modem/routers that I’d scouted online at work.  I looked and scratched my head; looked and scratched my head and then I picked up a box, turned it around in my hand, read the description and scratched my head some more.  A young fellow rushed up to rescue me from my technical confusion.  I explained to him that my modem/router had given up the ghost and I was looking for another.  He asked me what service I had and when I mentioned AT&T he grabbed the box that said AT&T and suggested that what was in that box would cure what ailed my internet.  It was also the most expensive so he probably figured the commission would go some ways towards curing what was ailing his wallet.  I’d been looking at another device that cost less.  “What will 35 more dollars buy me with the AT&T router?”  He picked up both boxes and turned them over in his hands and stammered a bit.  I supposed that if he had a third hand available he would have scratched his own head because clearly he didn’t know any more about this shit than I did.  I opted for the cheaper model and he asked me if he could write up a receipt to take to the checkout.  “Sure, no problem.”  Who am I to begrudge a working stiff out of a couple bucks of commission? 

Back at the office I showed my co-worker my new router and told her that tonight I was going to fix the internet.  “Why don’t you just call Al Gore?”  She was skeptical and predicted that inside of 15 minutes I’d be asking my daughter to do it.  “Nonsense this is going to be a piece of cake.  Just hook it up and load the password into all of the devices on the household network.”  Oh what a fool I was.

I got home and went right to work on fixing the internet.  “Screw Al Gore,” I said.  But at this stage of my life I’ve become realistic enough to live by Dirty Harry’s advice that, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”  So I carefully and reverently opened the box and saved all of the contents; every instruction and warranty, every little cardboard divider, every little plastic bag and every twist tie.  By now I know that when I try to fix something there’s a damned good chance that my project is going to go south and I may have to return whatever part or component I bought to fix whatever broke.

I read the “READ THIS FIRST” pamphlet and I realized that I had an issue right from the start.  I didn’t have to just hook the thing up to my HOME network.  I would have to get AT&T’s network to recognize the thing and that required my AT&T password.

Let’s pause here and talk about passwords.  Passwords have become the essence of our lives.  They’re as important as the air we breathe and the food we eat.  Everything that we hold dear and valuable is safeguarded by grandma’s birthplace; a pet’s birthday; the city of your favorite sports team and your first girlfriend’s mother's maiden name.  I suppose that it wouldn’t be so bad if it were all that simple but now your password has to include lower and upper case letters, a number or two, a special character and three Egyptian hieroglyphics.  This is all to ensure security but the problem is that you can’t memorize the fucking thing and so you have to write it down which makes the security thing kind of self-defeating.  And it isn’t just your bank or your workplace network.  Everybody and everything has a password.  Every retailer has a “rewards club” and when you sign up you have to enter a….password.  I stopped signing up for rewards clubs because I’m sick of adding to the endless scroll of passwords just for the privilege of getting 10 million promotional emails and a free cup of coffee on my birthday.  And God have mercy on you if you forget a password because recovering it requires a cavity search.

I’d been through the AT&T password nightmare the last time I got a modem/router and I’d written it down on an old AT&T bill that we kept in the drawer under the microwave.  I went the drawer.  It wasn’t there.  Oh God.  I didn’t want to call AT&T and have to deal with the patronizing robot man asking me canned questions.  The wife would know the whereabouts of the old AT&T bill.  Judas Priest, she was an ocean away, visiting her family back in the old country – The Philippines.  Luckily it was mid-morning there so I called her up.

“Where’s the old AT&T bill with all the passwords and shit on it? The internet is down and I have to fix it.” 

"Try looking in the drawer under the microwave,"she said. "If it isn’t there then look in the mail file. Have you tried calling Al Gore?"

Bingo!  It was in the mail file. 

I hooked up all the connections to the new router and got to the AT&T password prompt.  I entered one of the numbers.  PASSWORD NOT RECOGNIZED.  I tried more passwords that were scribbled on the bill and each attempt was answered by PASSWORD NOT RECOGNIZED - fuck me. There was nothing for it but to call AT&T and talk to robot man with the patronizing voice and the litany of questions.  I hate robot man.  He’s a tenacious, stubborn pit bull of a gatekeeping bastard who’ll do anything and everything to keep you from a live person.  And he’s unflappable.  In exasperation I’ve screamed at him and called him everything from a no good son of a bitch to a damned, black hearted son of a thousand whores and he only responds with “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.”  Just once I wish that robot man would respond with a Travis Bickle, "Are you talkin' to me?"

Robot man asked a few of the usual canned questions and then when I told him that I hadn't called Al Gore, the man who (apocryphally) invented the internet I was connected to a human person who apparently is looking for a promotion.  He didn’t want to just give me my password; he wanted to walk me through the whole process.  Okay fine.  Might just make it easier. He sneered a bit when I told him that the device I'd purchased was not a genuine, official AT&T product – a shareholder I guess.  And so we went back a few steps and before even getting to the password stage I was stuck. So we proceeded to a diagnostics page for the device where he walked me through a catalog of trying this, that and the other.  His instructions had me going from pillar to post, "Connect the yellow cable to the yellow port; disconnect from LAN1 and go to LAN2; go to this prompt on that page; now go to that prompt on this page; at the login type "admin" and for the password type "Beelzebub"; take off your hat, raise your left hand and put your right hand on the Bible; do the hokey pokey and turn yourself about." At the end of it all we'd looped to where we'd started - the damnable thing was not recognizing a signal.  “I hate technology,” I muttered to my daughter.  After about a half hour of dithering the AT&T guy decided it was time to punt. 

“Well,” I offered, “all I wanted from you was my network password.”

“Oh I can give you that.”

“Judas Priest,” I muttered.
He closed by suggesting that next time I buy an AT&T product but if I needed more help to either call Al Gore or the tech support line for my device. 

Password in hand I went back to work and got to the AT&T password prompt and typed in my genuine AT&T approved password.  PASSWORD NOT RECOGNIZED.  Ugh. There was nothing for it but to call up the tech support for the device itself.  Available 24/7 – thank God. 

The great thing about this line was the complete absence of robot man.  The downside was the woman, apparently offshore, had an accent you could cut with a knife.  There was an upside though; she had a very sexy voice – yeah I get it, dirty grandpa but I’m old not dead.  We went through a battery of the same exercises that the AT&T guy put me through; so much so that I found myself a couple steps ahead of her prompts.  Of course her prompts, as comely as they sounded, held no magic. The damned thing was not recognizing a signal. Finally I decided I’d had enough technology fun for a night.

“I’m going to make this easy for us,” I told the woman.  “I’m going to box this up and take it back tomorrow.”

“I’d really like to troubleshoot it,” she said.

"I appreciate that," I answered, "but I'm about trouble-shot."  I thanked her and wished her a good evening or good day or whatever it was wherever in the wide world she was.

“Done,” I announced to the daughter. 

“You fixed it?”

“No.  I give up for tonight.  I’m going to return this thing.” 

I went to the computer room with the box and packaging to pack that piece of shit device away.  As I damned Al Gore in my mind I started disconnecting the cords.  I happened to pick up the main cord in my hand and just for the hell of it followed it behind the big post of the bed we’d just moved into that room on Sunday.  Hello. Turned out that in trying to slide the bed flush with the wall we'd pushed the post against the wall plate and yes….unclipped the cable connection.