It May Or May Not Have Been The Snow's Fault

Where have I been hiding lately? Well, we had a storm. First it rained for a day and then it snowed.. for 12 hours maybe. And we maybe had 5 inches of snow. 

BUT... that 5 inches of snow was enough to knock out our phones and our internet... or so I thought.  So we called in a repair order and we waited... and waited... and waited.

Do you have any idea how stressful it is to live in a household with 5 teenagers and NOT have internet? I'm here to tell you that it wasn't pretty..  but that snow... that snow WAS pretty!

This morning we got a call (Our phone rang and we were actually shocked!) telling us that there was no trouble detected on our phone lines and the repair ticket was closed. Okaaaay.... but we didn't have service for 48 hours so how can there be NO trouble??  Our phone was back on for 2 whole hours before it all tanked once again. I called Qwest and told them that there definitely was trouble on our line and I expected it to be fixed... today! The customer service rep was nice enough, but when she told me that she couldn't get someone to my house until tomorrow.. I sort of freaked out on her and it went something like this...

"That's NOT fair! I had an appointment for TODAY and all I got was a call saying there was no trouble. I am actually DEMANDING that you get someone here to my house, T.O.D.A.Y!  And I want the repairman to actually come TO MY DOOR, not just call from somewhere and say there isn't a problem. I'm telling you there IS a PROBLEM!"

The service lady quickly "found" an opening for someone to come today. Shocker.

Then Carley cautiously entered the room and she was sort of giggling. "I can't believe you said it wasn't fair, Mom. You sounded like you were four years old... and you look like you're about to cry."

"I AM about to cry! I do that when I get this angry."

She nodded because she has known me for a while now and she knows that when I'm truly pissed then I cry. THEN I cry... it's stupid, I think.. because then people take that as a sign of weakness.. or sadness.. and believe me, when THAT happens, I am definitely not sad! (I'm about 2 seconds away from ripping someone a new orifice.. luckily it doesn't happen very often.)

So I waited patiently for the repairman to show up. And when he did, he told me the trouble wasn't outside, but inside the house. (Wasn't that a creepy slasher movie once upon a time??) So he comes in and starts checking all the phone jacks, all the while making these huge, exasperated sighs like I have just taken away his birthday, Christmas, AND Cinco De Mayo all at once. Duuuude, lighten up!!

Confession: The whole time he was testing jacks downstairs, I was praying with all my might that he would find the problem and NOT have to go up to the master bedroom. Mom, if you're reading this, close your eyes...stop reading now.. I mean it!  Okay, is she gone??  Good, because the confession is that my room was definitely not clean.  Ohmigosh PLEASE don't let the problem be in my room!

The problem was in my room.

I quickly cleaned up the books, magazines and pillows on the side of my bed, but one of those gosh darn pillows decided to vomit feathers just then and it looked like there had been a chicken massacre right there in my room. I can see the headlines now, "Repairman reports possible new cult forming in master bedroom of Layton home due to copious evidence of rituals involving chicken slaughtering." 

Nice.

You better believe I kept him waiting downstairs while I rushed the vacuum up the stairs. I am certain this didn't help his mood one single bit! Come to think of it, neither did traipsing him through Hubby's cluttered shop full of vehicle carcasses to look for the phone jack out there.  Geeze, no wonder he was unhappy being at our house!

The good news is that he capped the line with the short in it. The bad news is that now there is a jack somewhere that won't work because we basically put a tourniquet on the phone service leading out of my room.  (The recently de-feathered room!)  Oh well, we have all the working phone jacks we need, for now, and the internet is once again up and order has been restored in the world!

Not to worry, Mom.. my room will be clean by this evening. You can come check on my progress if you want to... just don't look in the closet!