My Life Offline... For Almost a Month!

O.K., it has been exactly five weeks to the day since we moved. Only eight hours in nearly 100 degree heat and we were in the new place. I have to say the guys at Full House Moving were simply the best movers I have ever had, and I have moved homes and offices more times than I care to count. If you're in the North Dallas/suburbs area, I highly recommend them. I would like not to recommend the phone company with which we were forced to sign on because they are the only company that services our area. We were very happy having our telephone and DSL service with Verizon. We found them to be prompt, efficient and responsive. Then it came time to switch. Being ever the administrator, I carefully orchestrated our switch for phone and computer service so that we would have minimal, if any, interruption. We were given a new phone number and it was hooked up the day we moved, as planned. Not so lucky with the DSL connection, but I'll get to that in a minute.It seems we live in a suburban area that is long distance from any surrounding areas including the neighboring suburb we just left. And it was also long distance to call anyone around here. Knowing that I had not had to dial a "1" before calling the previous home owner, I called the phone company to see what was up. It seems I could add extended local calling for an additional $10 per month. Not my favorite answer, but one I could live with. Oh, and in order to add that feature we would have to change the phone number again. Fine. Gritted teeth. And there would be a $38 charge to change that which I flatly refused to pay and was finally assured would not be billed to our account. I know, this is becoming a long story. Well, it took a solid seven days in a row of me calling this company and wading through the automated menu to get to a human being each time. After about five minutes of that, I would finally be greeted with "Hello, this is [name], how may I make you a very satisfied customer today?" (Try listening to that for the seventh day in a row!) My response was usually something like, "You can if you can get my phone number to successfully switch to the new one like it was supposed to a week ago!" At one point I even said to one of the Helpful Happy People, "I heard this company was bad, but I could never have even guessed how bad it could be!"O.K., so we finally got that all straightened out (of course I haven't received the bill yet). In the meantime, we received the modem for our DSL. My husband the IT guy was anxious to get it all set up so got busy right away installing it. One catch. They sent us a dead modem. No power. None. Zilch. We couldn't even use slow old dial-up because, guess what, no modem! So began a whole new series of "How can I make you a very satisfied customer today?" calls which finally ended in my saying "Please cancel the order for DSL!!!" That night we received the new modem on our doorstep and I now keep receiving computerized confirmation calls and letters saying that our DSL is officially up and running. Why am I rambling on about my "poor me" experience? Mostly to vent, I'll admit. But also to say that even the best laid plans go awry sometimes and you have absolutely no control over them. I hear so many people beat themselves up over things that go wrong when things just GO WRONG sometimes. As ludicrous as my story was, there is absolutely nothing I could have done about it. It was a comedy of errors from the beginning and that company just couldn't make it right. (I predict a short future for them, by the way.)On a lighter note, we are very happy in our new home! The phone and computer problems are finally behind us (I hope!) and we are enjoying a new beginning! We have room to breathe, my daughter happily circles the first floor (around and around and around) and life is good. By the way, I just checked out a friend's new blog today: http://antiquemommy.blogspot.com/We are both Moms of toddlers and in our 40's. She is very funny. Check it out for yourself!