On the Shoulder of the Information Superhighway

Here am I, unceremoniously booted from the train, my ticket in hand, banished to the antiquated and shameful dialup method of accessing the internet. As I type, I watch the small indicator in the corner of the screen, waiting for the moment I will be kicked offline again. Unlike the broadband, all-the-time connection, the dialup decides for you when you should be disconnected. Oops. There it goes.

It is the equivalent, I suppose, of sitting on my suitcase between the road and the rails, looking in one direction for the chance of a car and driver with an offer of a ride, and then looking down the other way, scanning the railroad track for my high-speed train.

When I signed up for the ride, I was issued a ticket and a hat, and I've been riding merrily along for all this time, holding out my stub at each station to have it punched by the smiling conductor with nary a problem. Thursday, the ticket apparently got an extra-close look, and it was determined that I was charged for the hat, but not the ticket. Rather than asking me to pay right then, or at the next station, I was kicked off the info-train, asked to stand in the back of the ticket line, and wait patiently while a new ticket is processed.

Thanks, Windstream! These are the corporate moments that obviously don't make the thirty second commercials, the ones proclaiming how well off you'll be, once you've signed up for the program. Those of you who know me (and that's all of you!) will be pleased to know that I kept my temper in check - if not my surprise - at the way the company's mistake was handled. (Can't get too angry after having six or seven months of free internet, although I'm sure the bill is being prepared, even now...) I did tell the woman that - if she didn't mind my pointing it out - I thought it was the wrong way to correct an error of their own making. It would have been easy enoughto include a personal message in the next bill, pointing out the situation, and including the standard internet charge that has been omitted to date.

In the meantime, I cannot conduct my regular business, much of which involves looking up authors, titles, and prices by way of the internet. I also have had to put aside the research I have been doing, for which I'm being paid regularly.

Ah, well.

No doubt, some of you know me well enough to realize I've already been thinking about an alternative company. Patience is a virtue, and one that I possess in adequate quantity. It's the lack of tolerance for incompetence that gives me the itchy dialing finger.

In the meantime, I've been forced to occupy myself with other things around the store, and I've come to realize that if the internet went out, say, every Monday, I could keep caught up on all my filing and cleaning.

It's almost fun to do while wearing this high-speed hat.