Annoyances Three

My home internet is a weak and sporadic thing. This is because it is bootlegged off the apartment house office. There are countless signals available but they are all secured, save the one that reaches across the parking lot from the office and into the southern half of my bedroom. If I sit under the window I can connect about three quarters of the time; elsewhere, perhaps a fifth. This is too unreliable for work, so I cannot work from home. That is not the annoying part.

I called Comcast and ordered a cable modem. I'm guessing that even in the metropolitan area that is only California's third largest, there are a few people every month in need of a cable modem. Surely it is not hard to predict as much. Further, the product was probably spec'd and designed in California and built in Asia. To warehouse a few in Northern California does not seem to me a logistical mistake.

Annoyance Number One: My cable modem has to ship, taking five to seven days, from Ellenwood, Georgia.

I gave my address, which was dutifully passed to FedEx. I was given a tracking number and could watch its progress across the country. Actually, it went under the radar for two days but then popped up in Sacramento after what I can only imagine was an adventure-filled day and night trek, experiencing that special road romance that can only be evoked by the whine and roar of a tractor-trailer rig coursing through Arizona sun and nighttime Georgia rain. Finally in the early morning hours a local delivery van was loaded and sent down the boulevards, and at 1:24 Monday afternoon a knock on my door went unanswered. A note was left.

Annoyance Number Two: FedEx entertains the notion that if I am not home early of a Monday afternoon, I might be early of a Tuesday afternoon; and if not then, the same time Wednesday.

I called for alternate arrangements but the apartment office was evidently not open (or checked) and we were loathe to okay leaving a hundred dollar modem at my front door. Additionally, the item was to remain in the truck. There was no driving down to the local FedEx warehouse to pick it up for it would not be available there until after the requisite three failed delivery attempts. That would be tonight, at earliest, or maybe tomorrow. They close at eight. I have a meeting that ends at six thirty; tomorrow, at seven thirty. Even so, I will be happy to go get the damn thing myself, just to get it.

Annoyance Number Three: The fucker shipped across country in two days, and it takes three more days before I am cleared to make the thirty or forty minute drive into South Sac to pick it up.

Yes: I could have used a more amenable receiving address. I learned my lesson and now have things shipped to the shop where I built the Lectric Lurveseat. It's between the freeway and home and there's usually someone there during business hours.

Bonus Annoyance: If I have to make a phone call I don't want people overhearing, I go outside. If I walk out the front door at four thirty or five, the guard cheerfully says "Goodnight!" as if I am actually leaving for the day! But no! Five o'clock is way too early to go home, and the contracted security officer lives in such a simple and naive world that he can think otherwise, and besides all that, he's cheerful about it.