Take My Money India, For I Have Lost My Will to Live

November 18, 2007 - Sunday

Worst Birthday Eve EVER!

So, I just thought I would share a little story regarding my Saturday night--taking place on both my Birthday Eve and then finishing on my actual birthday. No, this doesn't involve drinking too much, or falling off a stage (ahem, Justin)...I could only WISH that was what my night entailed.

It all started with IKEA yesterday. I do not blame the large royal blue and yellow mecca, but I must put some of this on them because their furniture directions are nothing if not complex and thus created my mood of frustration and fury that started off my day.

After putting together a day bed--the LAST of the 3 large pieces of furniture I managed to wrangle today, I looked down on my guest room floor and saw my NETGEAR installation CD and remembered that i never encrypted my wireless network. Being the granddaughter of an incessant worrier, the daughter of a librarian and the wife of a diplomat, I realized that the guilt of having an open wireless network was just too much to bear. So, I decided to pop back in the CD and start over and try to encrypt my network...by myself. (Insert bad decision music from a horror film...dum-dum-dum!)

The CD says it cant detect my wireless network...weird since it was using it at the moment, but whatever. So, I go to the netgear website and start the troubleshooting. I type in "encrypt" into the search engine and I find out how to secure my network. I could really bore you here, but instead I will skip ahead many frustrating steps to it telling me to find my MAC address (WHAT?) so I do a google search to find it only to type it in and it tell me, gasp, it's incorrect. So, I try many times until finally the IP address 192.168.1.1--thats right, I memorized it, stopped working and I finally had to stop or me risk my computer ending up killing the poor cats that meow (loudly) on the balcony below me.

I return a few hours later and decide to try again. I realized that my MAC address need colons--not dashes! Now why wouldn't I know that! And it seems to work! YAY! Uh oh...no more wireless network--it completely shuts down...I can plug in my Internet cord directly and it will work, but the wireless will not...

So, I call NETGEAR for the second time in one week and it takes 16 minutes to connect me with a LOVELY Indian gentleman named Victor on the other side of the world--I should send Jon to go beat him up. It will only take him a day's donkey ride to invade that disgusting doppelganger of Silicon Valley.

ANYWAY, Victor decides he had to register my wireless router, so 15 minutes later we are back to where we started and he has to go through all the steps that I did--correctly may I add--and after many attempts at connecting to my encrypted "Erin" network--no dice. Windows will not let me connect--nothing. So, after 45 minutes Victor cheerfully tells me that it is not his problem, it's Gateway's and I have to call them and get the "network utility disconnected" and then call back. Click. I want to go kick his camel so he has no way to get home

So, I decided I have nothing better to do--so I call Gateway. After choosing 18 different items on the menu and almost telling the automatic customer service rep to go fuck herself--they tell me that because my serial number has a letter in it--they can't help me--I purchased the computer at a retail store....because yes, so many of us purchase $1400 computers from a website where we have neither seen nor touched anything...and they give me an ALTERNATE phone number. So, I call the alternate phone number, have to go through the same hoops from the first phone call only to finally be connected to Tammy from Salt Lake City. I tell her that I need to "disconnect my network utility" and she types some nonsense into her speak-and-say and guess what--I have to register my product with Tammy too! YAY! After 15 minutes I hear..."hmm...it looks like your product is out of warranty. To get any help from us it will cost you $39 and there is no guarantee that we can help." WHAT THE FUCK!?! This is where it gets good.....

I guess from the overall day of furniture-building, Zoie peeing in places she's not supposed to, the fact that its my birthday and I am on the phone with Tammy instead of enjoying a fun evening with friends/Jon, computer problems and just Jon not being here in general--I start BAWLING. I don't mean contain a tear and play it off as allergies...I mean death in the family, kicked of "The Bachelor" BAWLING. Poor Tammy. She doesn't know what to do. She probably hates herself for having to ask for $40 for what amounts to the worst investment in history. She puts me on hold. During my hold period--and listening to Gateway's version of Sad FM...I compose myself (a little) and decide to just pay the blood money just to get this over with. After some awkward silences whilst she is ticking away at her computer, she asks me if it's cold here....? What? I am in Texas. I realize she is actually not an IT person. She has to CALL THE TECH DEPT. Super! She basically puts me on hold for 20 minutes to come back with a solution of a system rollback recovery--wow--very creative. So we do that song and dance and roll back my computer to its configuration on Friday, and no good--wireless still doesn't work. We then try and do a "Ping"...this all the while her Tech supervisor is telling her what to do to tell me what to do. She acts as if I can't hear her lesbian Mormon supervisor...so I play dumb and wait to do all the steps until Tammy tells me to do them to save Tammy further humiliation from this God-forsaken phone call. The ping basically says that it's my modem that has the problem, but just to be sure, we do a power re-boot. I unplug everything, and guess what--no wireless. Sigh.

Tammy has hung up on me and I start bawling again. WHY GOD?!?!? I compose myself yet again and google the brand name of my modem..."Terayon" hmm, this can't be good. The Terayon site directly takes me to the Motorola site....okay....So I go to the support tab, and the only options are for cell phones. I should be furious, but I am numb to the injustices of the world at this point and I have no more tears to cry. So, I decide to call Victor back in India--I think this was all his fault (and IKEAs) but I didn't think Sweden would take my call. As I am on hold for another NETGEAR person, I decide to go to the netgear website one more time and try to troubleshoot. I scroll the page to find out if your secure network won't let you get on the Internet. Their resolution: under encryption, click "None." This is not possible--how can this be? So, I type 192.168.1.1 one more time and click "None" where I am supposed to. Just as "Bob" picks up the phone to tell me his employee number, my wireless starts to think about it, and DING--connected. I tell Bob what just happened. He cheerfully asks if I would like him to help me try and re-encrypt my wireless network. No Bob, I would not like you to do that, but thank you so much for asking.

After $40, a used box of Kleenex, endless hours I cannot reclaim, two calls to India, two MISSED calls from Jon, I am back to where I started--using an unsecure network to learn about such useful information as which movie will claim the number one spot this weekend.

I don't know why God doesn't want me to have a secure wireless network...I guess he wants that douche-bag who plays Kenny Chesney really loudly on Thursday nights to have access to my checking account. Go ahead, Kenny-lover--take my $1300.