Day 4 of no home Internet: AT&T still hasn't found the squirrel; I'm not sure they're really looking

I published my sad tale of home Internet loss on Monday evening. I'd figured out/remembered how to turn a cell phone into a hot spot by then. Thus, I had two hot spots -- the one under my collar and the aforementioned phone -- and a means by which to inflict my admittedly First World problem back upon the Internet itself.

I fancy myself a writer these days. Writers write. (At least, we're supposed to.) And, as Mark Twain may or may not have said, "Write what you know." (Maybe it was Hemingway who said it. Whatever. This sort of direction puts a person like me at a competitive disadvantage, given how little I know about anything. But I knew about not having Internet. So I wrote about that.) The trick, of course, is to frame one's complaints in a way that proves instructive or at least amusing for others. When successful, this raises the output from mere whiny journaling to something more. Not much more, perhaps (after all, it is still whining), but that is for the reader to decide. Either way, I found the exercise therapeutic.

Yesterday morning, still pleased with my effort, I Tweeted out a link to the post. (I still say "Tweet" when referring to a posting on X. If I were to write 'I X'd something out' it would be, in my view, ambiguous. Had I crossed something out, rendering it illegible, or had I launched it into the wider world on the social media platform now known as X?)

The X-post elicited a response from AT&T. A person who is probably not known as Emma to her actual friends and family left a comment which read, in pertinent part, "I completely understand how important it is to count on reliable connections and I truly apologize for the inconvenience this has caused to you. I'll definitely look into this. Could you please help me with the zip code?"

I provided it. Soon thereafter, Emma left another reply, "Thank you for sharing the zip code. As I have checked with the shared zip code there is no service interruption from our end." Welcome to Corporate America, where the customer is always wrong. But I was prepared for this; I had (you may recall) figured out how to sign onto the AT&T website and check for outages that way. I published a photo of my laptop screen, similar to the one above. Identical, really, except the one above is from this morning. I also published another screenshot, this one showing the area of outage. It's small. No more than a block or two in any direction. (Which is why I assume that a squirrel caused it, as opposed to the North Koreans or some piratical band of Eastern Europeans.)

Anyway, confronted with the evidence of her own website, "Emma" was forced to concede, "As per the picture it looks like there's an outage at your location. I'll definitely get this checked for you. Could you please meet us in a DM so that we can take this further."

Now I have to admit, despite Doomscrolling far more than I should on X, I have never used the DM feature to any great extent. My first mistake was thinking I was to find a way to DM "Emma." But that's not how it works. Eventually, I figured out that I had to DM AT&T itself. "Emma" was there waiting... but not for long. I also didn't know how or where to look for DM responses, so I didn't see her responses until after she completed her shift.

"Emma" was replaced by "Juan."

Hello, Jack. I understand that you are experiencing issues with the Internet service due an outage. We're really sorry to know about the situation you're experiencing. You can be sure our specialized tech team is working hard to get everything up and running as soon as possible.

I sparred with Juan for awhile yesterday afternoon and evening. He sent me back to the website which I've visited a hundred times in the last few days. Shockingly, it still showed an outage. It still does. Juan later insisted, "I've carefully reviewed and checked the area, we have our engineers working right now to bring the internet back on and repair all the lines damaged." He thanked me for my non-existent patience. Both Juan and Ella were unfailingly polite.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. My Internet is still out. It's a relatively nice day today here in Chicago; I could, and did, take a good long walk through the neighborhood this morning, looking for any specialized AT&T engineers. I didn't find any. And my Internet is still out.

On the other hand, I also didn't find a dead squirrel. Maybe finding the bloated, decaying rodent corpse is more difficult than one would think... but, then, I lack any sophisticated squirrel detection equiptment: I am not a specialized AT&T engineer.

Day 2 of no home Internet is about to become Day 3 and desperation is beginning to set in

I'm not Andy Rooney, but I'm feeling cantankerous and curmudgeonly these days and, like the late Mr. Rooney, I'm not afraid to tell you about it.

I don't know for certain when our home Internet went down. It may have been out Sunday morning before my wife and I went to Mass; it was certainly gone afterward.

I don't overreact. I know the drill. First unplug the router, then restart it.

Nope.

Then unplug the Internet modem. Restart that.

Nope.

Only then did I try to find a telephone number where I could report my situation and, perhaps, find out whether my issue was a failure of my equipment or whether I was caught up in a larger problem. I found a number fairly quickly.

The AI that answered my call told me, in an annonyingly cheery voice, that it needed to run a few tests to check the problem. These tests took a bit of time. "Thank you for your patience," the cheery AI said. Goes to show you how bad AI is at reading us meatsacks: I had no patience at all. And that was at the beginning of this odyssey.

When the tests were concluded, the AI agreed that there was an outage in our area. But, the AI enthused, AT&T is aware of the problem and they are working to fix it. The AI estimated that repairs would be complete by 2:14 p.m.

But the Bears game started at noon! We cut the cable cord some years back; streaming was cheaper (well, it used to be). On the other hand, recent Bears games had all come down to 4th quarter; perhaps it would be alright.

The oddly specific estimated time for restoration of service came... and went... and the angry red lights were still flashing on the Internet modem. I called again. The AI was still cheery, but it may have been drinking. After again running a few tests ("thank you for your patience") and confirming that there was still an outage in my area, the AI offered a new estimated restoration time of "dollar sign-brackets." The Bears managed to win without my watching.

I called a couple more times yesterday, but the AI, perhaps embarrassed by its estimated restoration time of "dollar sign-brackets," refused to give any more estimated restoration times. After running its lengthy tests, while thanking me -- again -- for my patience, the AI did add -- in its insistently upbeat way -- that it understood how frustrating this was, but I didn't believe that any more than you do.

The Internet was still down this morning. So I called again. After running a few more tests (how many are there?), and thanking me for my patience, and conceding that there was, indeed, still an outage in my area, the AI braved a new restoration time: 4:50 p.m.

I understand that it's cold outside. But wouldn't you think that a ginormous corporation like AT&T could dispatch a technian to look for the remains of whatever squirrel that bit through the wire that brought down our local Internet service? Given how much it charges for its services, AT&T presumably could even furnish its technician with a heated truck.

If AT&T did have someone driving around the neighborhood looking for a squirrel carcass, he or she was not successful in his search, because 4:50 came and went this afternoon and the Internet was not restored.

I figured out how to sign on to the AT&T website today; this way, I don't have to listen to the AI anymore. But, since the 4:50 p.m. restoration time slipped by, the website has stopped guessing restoration times. At least it didn't tell me that my service would be restored by dollar sign-bracket.

And, without the distraction of TV, I had a chance to catch up on my reading a little. I read my AT&T bill for one. It seems AT&T is going to increase my bill by $5 starting next month. Who'd have guessed that?

Thank you for your patience.