Internet Up

I already mentioned that a thunderstorm knocked out our cable Internet connection last Wednesday night. All of our hardware — computer, modem, router, etc. — seemed to be working fine. Even our normal cable TV was working.

When the connection wasn’t back up by Thursday morning, Cowgrit started calling the cable company. The automated system kept hanging up on her, so she asked me to give it a try. I got the automated system, too, which of course couldn’t solve our problem. When the system tried to transfer my call to a live tech, the line disconnected. We tried several times to get through, past the automated system, but every time, we were disconnected. We even tried calling the local, physical office, but still just got the same automated system.

That afternoon, Cowgrit went to the cable office. The woman at the front desk said to bring in our cable modem for a replacement. When Cowgrit called me to tell me that, I said that wouldn’t solve our problem. Cowgrit had only told her that our Internet connection was down, and the woman hadn’t asked anything about the problem. She just said to get a new modem. Our modem showed all green, so I didn’t think the problem was our modem.

But Cowgrit wanted to try the replacement anyway. We were talking about it on the phone (I was at work), so I just made sure she knew which box on my desk was the cable modem. She knew, and she could unplug it and take it in.

When she called back a couple hours later, she said she had the new modem, but needed me to reconnect it all. She didn’t know which cables went where. No problem; I’d do it when I got home.

She mentioned that there was a line of customers at the cable office all there doing the same thing. Apparently the Internet outage was a problem for more than just our home. The people also had problem with their digital phones and digital TVs. That told me the problem was with the digital cable — the Internet connection is digital. Our normal cable TV was fine.

When I got home, she and the boys were out at swim lessons. I walked into our home office and nearly had an aneurism. There were cables and cords strung out all over the place. “Holy crap!” I said. I stood there staring at the mess of wires for a minute wondering just what the hell she had done to disconnect the cable modem. Not only were many more wires disconnected than needed to be, from equipment that has nothing to do with the modem, but the desk and book shelf were moved so things could be disconnected from the wall.

Cowgrit can insert a needle in a blood vein, connect and disconnect an I.V., and stanch blood loss from a severed artery, but don’t let her near your computer wires.

I set about reconnecting everything, including the new modem, and I pushed the furniture back into place. Finally, I repowered all the hardware. Still no Internet connection. Dammit. I knew it wasn’t the stupid modem.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com