when going on the #Internet sets off your #Burglar #Alarm in #SANTA #FE

On Wednesday, I got a call from a sweet-sounding woman who was checking to make sure that all would go well with the QWest appointment.  It was her job to confirm that the technicians would install everything I had ordered.   So far, so good.    We were having a wonderful, happy, successful experience going down her check list until she said, “Oh, by the way…”

        In calls like that one, I have learned that almost nothing positive happens after someone says, “Oh, by the way…”    After saying, “Oh, by the way…”  mechanics reveal something additional that needs to be fixed on the car and costs more than $1200.   After saying, “Oh, by the way…” dentists discover a tooth that needs more bridge work than the Golden Gate.   “Oh by the way…” from your wife means  the dog is hysterically pregnant, the car has inexplicably exploded or my ex-wife wants to cancel the divorce.

      She asked, “Oh, by the way, do you have a burglar alarm?”

       “Yes.”

 “And does this alarm use the telephone to connect with a central service?” 

       Of course it does.  That’s how burglar alarms work: Somebody opens a door or a window, a wire is tripped and the phone automatically notifies a phone bank in a central location like Phuket, Indonesia, where trained operators call back to America, ask if a burglar is answering the phone and, if so, could he please immediately call the cops.  I’m not sure what they are instructed to do if the person answering the phone denies he or she is a burglar.

     Despite being in Santa Fe, we do not communicate by smoke signals, which would not be a good burglar alarm in any case.

           Without a phone, there would be no way to operate a burglar alarm, unless it was somehow electronically hooked up directly to the police station, where a fat desk sergeant would get zapped in the butt, notifying him of a break-in at the Mark residence, causing him to drop his doughnut and be awakened whenever my home was invaded.  Or maybe the opening of a window or door would also unlock a cage, which would let loose a poisonous snake in the house, although the resulting lawsuits might be prohibitive.

     Then, in her nicest, most cooperative voice, the woman added, “With a burglar alarm attached to the phone, I need to inform you that any time you go on the Internet you might set off your burglar alarm.”

          It took a few moments to understand this:  I quite calmly said, “Let’s say I want to read my email.  That act could start bells and sirens ringing in my home?  Or, if I wanted to look at EBay to see what was the latest offer for the wad of gum that Britney Spears spit at a paparazzi – would that cause the cops to come to my home with guns drawn?”

           “Well, I don’t know what you use the Internet for, but, yes, those are possibilities.”

           It would certainly mean that my life would frequently lack peace and quiet.

           “Could the same person from your company who installs the Internet put in something that would prevent my alarm from having a nervous breakdown?”  It seemed like such a logical suggestion, although I must admit that my frustration caused my voice to sound a teensy bit testy.

            “I’m afraid not,” she explained.  “The person giving you Internet access is an outside technician.  The bypasses needed to prevent the alarm from going off each time you’re on the Internet must be installed by an inside technician.”

           “And there is a big difference between inside and outside techs?”

           “I’m afraid so.”

           I really didn’t understand.  “It would seem to me that, once you send someone to the home, he or she should be able to do both inside and outside work.  It is a little like having one surgeon to perform incisions and another to sew up the patients.  Are the outside technicians so misshapen or ugly that no one would want them inside their homes?”

           She laughed in a gay and carefree manner.  “Hardly necessary.  It’s just that there are different technical requirements.”

      “So,” I pleaded.  “Could Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside arrive at the same time?”

      “Highly unlikely,” she said.  “Their schedules are very different and I believe they are coordinated by different offices, located in different states, perhaps even different countries.  Now let’s see: it will cost an additional $49.99 for a technician to enter your home, install the Modem and make sure the wiring would not trip your burglar alarm.  Is that something you want?”

       That was a little like asking: we could re-attach your head after it was tragically separated from your body.  Is that something you want?

       “I would be willing to spend that much to have a burglar-alarm free Internet connection.  When could Mr. Inside do the job?”

       She said, “Unfortunately, the earliest he could arrive on an expedited appointment schedule would be 10 days from now.”

     There goes the firm, etched-in-stone, no-deviation, anxious-to-satisfy-you appointment for tomorrow, Thursday.

      Normally, the customer is told that the technician will be there some time between 8 am and 6 pm.  If the customer isn’t waiting for the tech’s arrival, the phone company has the right to possess the customer’s dog or first born child, whichever is worth more to the company’s bottom line.  Actually, I am dealing in a bit of hyperbole here – the phone company doesn’t want your dog.

          Then we discovered another “Oh, by the way” problem: she asked what kind of computers we have.  Ours has always been a mixed marriage of computers.  I use a Macintosh, probably because I love the gritty, smaller, more innovative company that Apple is and Macs have served me well over the years.  Grace went over to the enemy a few years ago when she was selling real estate and the company with which she was working was all Personal Computers.  I suspect that she might find Bill Gates to be intellectually attractive, but I have no proof of that.

We have learned to live in a Mac/PC household, sending attachments “.doc” and “rich text” to the other’s computer so that items written on one can be understood on the other.  I believe we each harbor a certain smugness about our computers, believing that the one we work with is better, easier and faster than the other.  And yet we have remained happily married despite our computer near incompatibility.

The telephone lady continued, as if explaining the why it is time to go to bed to a particularly difficult child, “All our technicians are trained on PCs.  However, I must warn you that many of them do not know how to hook up a Mac.”

Was the purpose of this entire experience to drive me insane?  In the old film “Gaslight,” Charles Boyer merely dimmed the lights to send Ingrid Bergman around the bend.  Was the true design of the AllConnect/Comcast/Qwest experience to fill local asylums with more patients? 

I believe the whimpering began about that time.  “What do I need to do?  Find and hire my own Mac guru?  Buy a PC computer so your guys will be comfortable?  Get a medicine man to drive the evil spirit of the Mac out of my home?” 

“No,” she said, giggling lightly as if tiny silver bells were in her throat.  “I’m just alerting you to the possibility that the technician may have some difficulty with your computer.  But then again, he may not.”

In the end I took my chances.  And waited.