Ernestine, The Telephone Operator

Little did we know when the power went out Tuesday night that we would spiral downward into a void that would involve not only our electricity but our telephone and our internet service, as well. Granted, the telephone problem is with the land-line only but, when you live in Oysterville, most mobile service is iffy at best. So, effectively, we are in a communication vortex.

I am not complaining exactly. After all, I’m the one who is always wishing for a day or two back in time – back before all this electronic-digital-media world began to suck up the hours and take over my life. Well, apparently today is the day.

Telephone Lines, India

Yesterday, shortly after noon, Nyel was able to make contact with CenturyTel… sort of. He used his smart phone and managed to communicate by pushing a series of virtual buttons ad nauseum until he was finally told by a recorded voice that “they” would put in a fix-it ticket and we would have service within twenty-four hours.

The magic fix-it time has come and gone and still our phone is not working. Plus, suddenly, we have no internet access. Our DSL connection comes to us via a fiber optics line said the nice young man and that, said he, comes through our phone line. No phone. No internet. But, I tried to explain to him, we’ve had no phone service since Thursday morning; our internet didn’t disappear until today, Friday.  Not possible he said.

No There There

To complicate matters, my computer screen went black and stayed black this morning. I talked to Shawn at Mike’s Computers who explained to me that Windows does an automatic monthly update (YIKES!) which happened to coincide with the power outage and resulted in some folks not being able to get online. I took him my computer, the update finished loading and I was good to go – except not at home where we are still in some other reality.

Definitely a vortex, I say. Obviously, we have one foot in the here and now and another foot in Never Never Land. No land line. No internet. No email. No news from the outside world.

Postscript:  Telephone service and internet access were restored at 4:21 p.m.  Yay!