Amber Waves, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

You’ll be happy to know that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my Internet connection, even though it cuts out a dozen times in a day, sometimes, and on other days it merrily chugs along.

I would share your joy in my smoothly running variable speed situation if it weren’t for that random “cutting out a dozen times a day” part.

But the cheerful woman on the other end of the phone line — on the other end of the planet, actually — was definite that there was no problem with my modem, no problem with my connection, no problem of any sort anywhere in my vicinity, and was there any additional way that she could help me, please?

Well, no thank you, I think you’ve done about all you could do which is . . . nothing.

It reminds me of adding minutes to my month-by-month cell phone, which, when it doesn’t go right — and this is frequently — involves further conversation with friendly people living in a nation known for hot curries, Darjeeling tea, tigers, and high mountains.

Ascension, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

The positive part of all this is that I’m learning to be more patient, because it really isn’t the “Customer Service” representatives’ part, but I’d thought that, after parenting for more years than many of these representatives have been alive, I was pretty easygoing in my pushy, thrusting, aggressive way.

“The Internet’s out AGAIN!” Tired of Being Youngest, who isn’t a parent yet (Thank God) and thereby hasn’t picked up on easygoing and patient, does not deal well with blips and bleeps.

“You’ve got to call these people and DO SOMETHING!”

I love this.

Waiting, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

The problem is, calling these people never takes under 20 minutes and rarely results in results. My latest conversation ended on this note:

Me: “Let me get this straight: because according to your information, nothing is wrong with my connection, you haven’t actually done anything in the process of this call — like press a button or jiggle a wire or write a little sticky note to upper management, and when I hang up, I’m going back to the same situation I had when I called you in the first place?”

Representative: “That is correct, Mrs. Middle Aged Plague, there is nothing wrong with your connection, and we are delighted to be your high speed Internet provider. Is there anything further that I can do to help you?”

I’m not sure what she meant about the “further” part.

It’s not so much that the young woman comes from a culture diametrically different from mine, and that, even though we’re both speaking English with drastically different accents, we’re really not communicating; it’s not even that she’s probably Tired of Being Youngest’s contemporary with about the same amount of training and experience; it’s that I Never Get My Problem Resolved.

If I lived in a non-rural area, where things like telephones, electricity, and indoor plumbing weren’t such recent additions of the last 100 years, I would find another company, but competitors aren’t muscling one another out of the way to serve a population smaller than the average urban high school.

So I pull the cord out of the modem, jiggle it around, say a little prayer, sit with the kitty and chat — it reminds me of the days that we whacked the TV on the side to get rid of the snowy screen.

Works about as well now as it did then.

Awakening, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I’m not the only one frustrated. College Girl introduced me to Peggy on You Tube. Funny!