I spent several hours with the Spectrum “people” on my computer yesterday.  Or they might have been bots.  It’s hard to tell in these “conversations” in “chat rooms” — whatever they are.  My “room” (which is my office) doesn’t morph into anything especially chatty nor does my computer — except for the faint blue tinge as I try to keep a civil tone to my responses.  (My own version of bot-speak.)

My intent was to find out when we here in Oysterville could expect to get hooked up.  After all, they laid the cables in our right-of-way months ago — in fact I think they started here in the village almost a year ago.  But, so far, no one from Spectrum has spoken to us about when we might expect to be offered service.

William Bendix as Chester A. Riley

After several-hours of online gibberish with them yesterday, my own surprising reaction was hearing the voice of William Bendix as-clear-as-clear for the first time in seventy years!  He was the radio actor who played the part of  Chester A Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. His frequent exclamation of indignation—”What a revoltin’ development this is!”—became one of the most famous catchphrases of the 1940s.  And here it was rattling around in my head.

I had called Spectrum’s (supposedly) Long Beach, WA, office.  No live voice.  So I accessed their online number.  No live voice but a pleasant, chatty woman that said oh yes, I could arrange to have Spectrum connect me up.  They are ready and waiting…

A gazillion questions and answers (some I thought rather an invasion of privacy which, of course, I don’t really think we have any more) and they were ready for me to suggest three dates when they could come and get me hooked up.  So I did just that — three days next week.  Then it all got waffely and the session ended.

A few minutes later I received a message from Spectrum:  “Changes have been made to your account…”  Say what?  Now I have an account?  And I have to call a number if I want to find out about the aforementioned changes?  That’s the precise moment when I heard William Bendix’s still familiar voice:  “What a revoltin’ development this is.”

The sun was well over the yardarm here in Oysterville and so I decided that a Bloody Mary might be just the balm for my spirits.  Meanwhile… I told myself I’d think about calling tomorrow…