Fun with teethcosters

Damn. I take the Peace Bike to Covington all day, and I come home to a very slow news day and a teethcoster! The teethcoster turned out to be based within my apartment, but it's a teethcoster nonetheless - because it never would've happened but for the phone company's beedledickery.

A teethcoster is a loss of Internet connectivity. There was even a song about teethcosters back in the '70s called "You Little Teethcoster." Just joking. Actually it wasn't called that.

Anybip, I arrived home today to be confronted by a teethcoster. My high-speed wouldn't work. No way, no how. So I called the phone company, who owns the high-speed service.

Now, this particular phone company has a monopoly on regular phone service in my area and is one of only 2 high-speed providers. Because of its near-monopoly, the public has a right to hold it to a high standard. And I've been quite generous to it.

When I called, the man on the other end scheduled a service call for tomorrow between noon and 4 PM. (Gee, that narrows it down.) But when I was done, I noticed something rather bizarre: The wire from my phone jack to my modem had been pulled out.

Turns out there's only one way this could have happened. This morning, I was rousted out of bed at 7 AM by a threatening phone call from a certain business (which I've never had any dealings with). When I was fumbling for the phone, the wire must have gotten yanked.

How is it the phone company's fault that I got a harassing phone call, which is the proximate cause of the wire getting pulled? Because the phone company hasn't done shit about the harassing calls I've been getting. And these aren't all hang-up calls either.

To give you an idea of how long ago this started, during the first harassing call I remember getting, the song "One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head was debuting on WCLU. So it had to have been early 1985. I was 11. The phone company hasn't done one thing in 23 years to halt it. Not one fucking thing.

The phone company says go to the police. The police say go to the phone company. I've had to have my number changed about once every 6 months, and it never solves the problem.

I actually hadn't got a call like this in about a month, but if there's one thing I need to do this summer, it's put a stop to this shit once and for all. Especially because I know where today's call came from!

So when I goed to Covington today, one of my first errands was photographing the offending business to add to my road photo collection. I was madder than fuck, and I still am.

When I found the loose wire later, I fixed it and got on the Internet. I promptly e-mailed the phone company to tell them to cancel the service call.

But here's the real fun part: I don't think they're going to cancel it. So they're going to send a repair crew out here for nothing! The crew probably won't mind, because they got extra work by driving out here. But the phone company will, because it's on their dime!

Think of all the money the phone company is going to spend on gas and on paying its repair crew all for naught! It serves the phone company right for not doing anything about the harassing calls, because the whole incident resulted from such a call. And it's not my fault if they come out here, because I told them to cancel the run. If they don't cancel it, that's their stupid fault.

If they try charging me for the run I canceled, I'll fight them on that.

If it comes down to it, I'll hold a protest outside the phone company's headquarters - about the extra charge and about their inaction on harassment. Such a protest is legal. Check the rules.