Silence Can Be Golden----Sometimes!

From 4:30 yesterday afternoon until 3:30 pm today, I didn’t know if my phone, TV and internet would be available to me. OK—it’s not the “Oh, she just didn’t pay the bill” thing. Nope. I sent e-mail yesterday morning before I left my house around 7 am. When I got back home at 4:30. No dial tone, no internet, no TV. I wanted my 230 channels.

The Verizon Person told me he’d received other calls from my neck of the woods too. Unfortunately, as I burnt up minutes on my cell phone, his helpful hints of what to do—including taking the battery (about six inches long and three inches wide) out of its battery pack holder--didn’t work. He said to take it out and just put it back in. The battery had wires on the top, similar to a car battery. One end attached to the battery—a black wire and a red wire. The other end had prongs. It looked it needed to be plugged into something. He says, ‘No, you just need to put the battery back in the holder.” Nothing. He concluded I needed a Tech Person to come out. That couldn’t be until the next morning. First thing he said. The tech would call me at 8am to tell me what time he or she would arrive.

So no TV, no ‘net, no home phone. I should have read. Needed to read the book I’m hosting at a book club in July. A book club I was invited to last fall. I’ve read about 20 pages of the book. This was before; I accidentally left the book at DFW while I waited for my luggage, a couple weeks back. Back to last night—since I was so tired from volunteering at a writer’s conference all day-I curled in bed. A cat or two curled two. I figured it was one of those nights; God needed me to have some silence, and Know.

Now this morning, since I just knew the Tech person would call at 8 am and be here shortly there after, I headed to Wal-mart at 6:30 am. That is the BEST time to go to Wal-mart. Nobody there. Get in. Get out. Love it. I was home by 7:30. Only 30 minutes until the Tech Person calls.

At 9:30 a.m. after I showered and ready for George Stephanopoulos to tell me about “This Week…” still no Tech person. I had to leave at 10am for church. Call Verizon, and we set something up for 3:30ish-4 pm ish this afternoon. I get out of church, on the way to my lunch plans, I check my cell phone. The Tech Person called. He’s at my house right that second. It’s 12:40. I explain I wasn’t going to be home until later, that’s what was set up. The Tech Person says, “No Prob-just call me when you get there.” He says there’s some outside stuff he needs to do, yet the battery pack inside, may need to be replaced.

I get home at 3:30 pm. Aha! Dial tone. TV—yippee---I’ll get to see the New Food Network Star—and INTERNET!! However, the battery pack, in the back bedroom still beeps. A red light on the pack means to ‘replace battery’. I call Tech Person. “No prob- I can fix that!”

He soon rings the doorbell. Cats scatter. Tech Person stands there with a battery in his hand—just in case. I show him where the battery pack is. “Ah, that’s your problem. The battery needs to be plugged in!” He plugs it in. All the lights come on like they should. All is right with the world.

This was two part problem, however. Yesterday, I had power outages, sometime during the day. Also there was a new Verizon install in the area. Where my wires meet with the other folks’ wires, switches and doo hickies—I guess, like a grid—someone didn’t notice my switches or whatever doo hickeys weren’t on---due to the power outage. All in all, the Tech Person had to call somebody else to get all the wires, switches and doohickeys in their right positions. “It should never happen again,” He says.

God gave me a night of needed rest, to reflect and to be thankful.

Tonight I have popcorn for my viewing of Aaron McCargo, Jr., who should be the New Food Network Star!