Cable TV

On Saturday morning we got cable.

The cable dude called at 8:30 and said he was on the way and would be there in half an hour.

At 9:30 he called and said he was lost. He wasn't actually lost. He, like my parents, had driven by my building multiple times not thinking people could conceivably live in it.

He called again because he couldn't find the door.

Then he didn't call and didn't turn up, so I called him and found out he'd taken the wrong elevator and was locked in a stairwell. Who knew you could be locked in a stairwell in my building?

We had a dish already outside our window, which was good because we couldn't have had access to the roof due to the fact that the management and superintendent of our building do not work on Saturdays. I thought to myself "This will be so easy! He will just plug in the receiver and we will have cable!" Then I thought to myself "Wait a second - nothing about NY is easy so of course there will be drama."

At first there didn't seem to be any drama. Things seemed relatively straightforward. The cable dude was taking his sweet time and being all chatty, though, because he was a Computer Engineering Major at UMass and was psyched that I too went to UMass! He was amazed! I couldn't understand why he was so excited, but then it occurred to me that I've lived in an area for so long where pretty much everyone went to UMass. He just couldn't get over it. He said "You must have some crazy stories" and I said "Not really - unless you consider stories about studying CRAZY!"

He plugged in the receiver, and of course, no signal. None. Nothing he could do. He unscrewed something on the dish which involved his hanging out of the window and swearing for about 15 minutes. He was clearly afraid of heights. I was afraid for him.

When unscrewing the whatever didn't work, he announced that he was going to his truck.

He returned a few minutes later and decided that "someone played with this dish" and that he would take it out and put it back. Fine. This, unfortunately, involved my help and therefore my hanging out the window. I thought I was going to die. It was kind of funny, and kind of fun, since I was actually socializing with someone. But I was seriously freaking out.

Eventually the cable got hooked up and that was that. But let the stick beating begin - when the cable dude was leaving, he was all "Can I call you?" Heh. I said he could, not because I want him to, but because I couldn't really say "no" because he had just undergone a ridiculous amount of stress to install cable in my apartment. Like potential-life-ending stress. Plus, he already has my number and knows where I live so I figured I'd keep in amicable.

The reason I tell this story, though, is because as soon as he turned on the receiver in my apartment my cell phone stopped working. Like it went from 6 bars to none, maybe one, sometimes the grey bars that allow only emergency phone calls. And when I have one bar, I can't actually make phone calls. Like it will drop the call as soon as it starts ringing. I am pissed. I don't know if its a total coincidence or if the cable signal is actually now interfering with my cell phone. I called my cell phone carrier and they "sent a program" to my phone that "might help."

Ergh.

Nothing in this city is easy!!!!

It was extremely frustrating because I was waiting for M & A to arrive, and had no way to talk to them since our land line doesn't work either. I had to leave the apartment and walk a few blocks to call them. Then, when I got back, my cell phone miraculously worked again. I was relieved until the following morning when, of course, it no longer worked. It didn't work at all yesterday. It doesn't work only in the apartment.

In other tragic news, the inputs to my fabulous power supply at work do not accept the leads from my fabulous gel box, so that sucks. I think they make adaptors, but what a pain! I can't seem to get anything right in this city!!!!