This morning, I did what I do most mornings.

I made myself a cuppa, and sat down with the laptop, to check my mail.

“Server Not Found”

Bugger!!

Went to check a website or two…

“Page cannot be loaded”

Double bugger!!

I tried various things but couldn’t get connected.

Now, it’s still early in the morning so I’m not really thinking straight. I jump to the natural conclusion that my broadband has failed. Now this means a long phone call with my provider, where I will try to get my message through to someone who hasn’t a word of English. But I ring them anyway.

So I go through the usual hoops of pressing different numbers and listening to musak and ads and things and eventually get through to a real person. Foreign, of course, but a reasonable command of the language. I give him my details and explain that I have no service.

I have one of those cordless phones, and to while away the time I tend to wander around the place. I wandered over to my main PC [I am a man of the modern world – PCs all over the place!] and switched it on.

While I am telling this bloke that my service is down, the main PC starts downloading mail. All the usual penis enlargements start arriving in my inbox.

Shit!

I nip back to the laptop, and it is still dead. I realise then that somehow the wireless button thingy is not lit. Somehow, it got switched off. I switched it on, and there was my connection.

Double shit!!

And all this time, the bloke on the phone is protesting that he can find nothing wrong with my connection and I am insisting that I can’t connect. So what do I do now? If I admit it is my fault, then I will lose credibility and they will laugh at me and never take me seriously again.

The bloke then starts complaining that he can see traffic on my sector going to my connection. So I tell him that’s impossible. “There’s no connection,” says I “so how can there be traffic?”.

I demanded to speak to a supervisor. The supervisors there never speak to anyone [I don’t think they have any] so I knew I was safe. He started to panic. He started pressing buttons all over the place. I could hear his keyboard clacking like mad.

“There.” I shouted, “Whatever you just did brought my service back!”

“But I did not do anything?” he replied.

“Yes you did,” I said “and my service is now fine. Thank you very much. You have been a great help, and I’m going to write to the management and tell them how good you are.”

I hung up.

I’m sure I have made him feel good. He feels he has accomplished something, and he has received a verbal pat on the back. The call wasn’t a waste of time.

Now I have to wade through the penis enlargements, and see if any of them are any good.