Feb. 1 -- Lisa's Musings From Every Day Life

Feb. 1 isn’t going so well.

It’s been like one of those days where you get dressed, head out and use a public bathroom, then realize that you’ve put your underwear on inside out and there’s nothing you can do about it until you get home.

So until you get back home, you fret that maybe you’ll get in an accident and the hospital people will see you with your underwear on inside out and laugh at you.

When I got up to cover a story in Ann Arbor this morning, I turned on the computer and my DSL wasn’t working.

It’s deadline day for A2 Journal and I’d planned to have this story with photos for Thursday’s paper.

But my DSL isn’t working, which pretty much puts me out of business until it does.

So, after trying everything I could think of, I broke down and called ATT.

“Conrad” from India or some other outsourced foreign country, who only works from a script for ATT, was very polite, but equally very unsuccessful, in getting my DSL to work.

I’ve unplugged, plugged in, changed plugs, turned off and turned back on every gizmo and gadget involved with both computers and the DSL connection and nothing has worked.

Truth be told, the DSL has been acting up for a few weeks now – ever since ATT has been screwing with the wires at the boxes near my house. Every time they make improvements for everyone else, my service gets worse.

But eventually, it started working again.

Regardless, it’s really annoying, and I must admit, I got very frustrated with “Conrad,” as he walked me through his script redoing all the same things I’ve done 50 times before resorting to calling ATT for customer support.

But, I tried to be as Zen as possible and not swear at him. I just exhaled deeply numerous times.

So, now I’m waiting for a nice technician to arrive. Which means a few of my stories aren’t getting filed and I have to sit here until perhaps 8 p.m. (did I mention I have a city council meeting tonight?) until the technician arrives.

He’ll probably undo all the things that “Conrad” had me do and got me so mixed up that the blender is probably plugged into the DSL line slot at this point.

But, Conrad reminded me numerous times, when the technician arrives, it’s very important that I write down the technician’s phone number.

So, explain this to me -- if the guy is here, in my house, working on the DSL line, why do I have to write down this guy’s phone number?

I haven’t a clue, but I assured “Conrad” every time he reminded me, that I would.

Heck, I tried everything else he suggested, so what’s one more dead end?

It’s now 11:33, I have no idea how many hundred e-mails have piled up (one from my editor, already, because she told me so) in the four accounts I have, and I’m already worrying that this blog post might not make it up on www.A2Journal.com before midnight.

It would be the first time since I started this project that I’ve missed a post.

And, quite frankly, although I sometimes look for excuses not to cover Ann Arbor City Council meetings, I hope to be up and running long before I have to leave to go cover the one tonight.

So, if you’re reading this and it’s still Feb. 1, I was able to slip away and find a WiFi connection because a friend stopped by, which allowed me to leave the house to file it.

Or, the nice technician got here and fixed the problem.

And I have his phone number.