My Virgin Blog

Super, my virgin blog, very excited. Thanks Heike, you and a silly Friday mood were the catalyst. Here goes...

I have a particular conundrum that is both infuriating and quite funny at the same time. My broadband connection moves into a cycle of resetting itself endlessly every time there is rain. At the first sniff of moisture in the air over Joburg's blue skies, the little flashing yellow tick on my modem starts dancing like a zulu on battle day. In fact it is so predictable that I can tell when it is going to rain before the clouds are even evident...dazzled a few people with that little trick, I have.

So, like every internet dependent geek, after putting up with the stuttering connection for a few rainy summer days, I phoned the local service provider and reported the fault one fine sunny morning. The helpful automaton on the other end, after dutifully checking my name, id number and DNA, tested the line and declared that it was working and hence no fault could be reported. I could not argue, the line was certainly working at that point. No fancy verbal jousting was going to convince this lady that I actually had a 'broken phone' when her little computer told her otherwise.

Now, on occasion, I am prone to think that I am somewhat sneaky so I waited for the next spot of rain and phoned again. This time I was fairly certain that the line would go down and I would get top marks on the 'line test'. It all went to plan, I had a self-congratulatory moment, a technician was duly flagged on the system and all I had to do was to be available on a certain day the following week and all would be well again in downloadia.

Yes, you guessed it, said day was bright and sunny, my internet connection was flying, flawless. The technician spent a few minutes poking around and plugging and unplugging things and declared his job done and that it would be fine from now. He lied like a dog! The very next time rain beckoned, down went my precious. I hopped back onto the phone and once again got my booking with a technician for the following week. Same result.

So now I am in the process of trying to book a technician for a rainy day on a rainy day. Its harder than it sounds and no amount of surfing weather forecast sites seems to help. You see, you have to predict, to the half hour, both the onset of rain and the arrival of the technician, both as slippery as wet moss on a round smooth rock. I have had some success in delaying departure of technicians either by engaging them in long conversation or handing out free drinks but, as yet, bribing rain to show up on time has proved tricky...