Cable Guy Part 2

So I told you about how my dad called the Cable people on the 19th and said we'd be turning off our cable on the 27th (the last day of the pay period for the cable). He gave them the notice because of how notoriously inefficient the Cable Company is, and that way they could hopefully have their act together enough to have the cable off by the 27th. (Most people wouldn't have told them until the 27th, hoping to get a few days of free cable until they turned it off, but dad just has to be honest....jerk.)

Anyway, on the 20th, they turn it off! Since when are they that efficient...ever? After several back and forth phone calls they said they'd turn it back on early Friday morning.

This was too late for me, as I was going to miss British Open coverage for the day (and Tiger shot a 65!), but I guess things could be worse.

Come Friday morning, the cable wasn't on. My dad kept calling them all day, and they gave him the mighty runaround. Several times they claimed the cable had been turned on. (It hadn't.) Several times they claimed it would be done at noon. Sometimes they had confirmation. (They didn't.) Sometimes it was because we hadn't rescanned our TVs. (We had.)

Dad kept calling home to see if it was on, as the day crept more and more into midafternoon. Finally, this stunning series of events.

I get a call from someone (who probably figured out my dad wasn't at home and wanted to hide from him), apologizing for the mess. I told the dude he had the wrong man. "My dad is a pretty patient person." I said. "What evil must thou have committed to make him so ired?"

Anyway, this guy claimed the cable would be turned on that afternoon or early evening. Okay.

Not three minutes later I get a call from another man in the company, who assured me the cable had been turned on, but it might not have been done correctly because it was by an outside guy. (Why would you use outside guys if it wasn't done correctly?)

I told this dude, the cable definitely wasn't on. It was, he assured me ,but I had to rescan. I told him I'd tried that twice. He seemed scared, so I told him one of his colleagues had just called and promised they'd be out that afternoon or early evening.

"Really?" he said, mystified. "Oh, okay. Well, if he doesn't show up, the next date I can have someone out...." I didn't like the word "date." I preferred "time."

The guy looked over his log: "The next date is the 20th." Giant pause.

"Uh, dude, that's yesterday!"

"Really? Well, the next date I can have someone come out would be the 25th."

I shuddered, wondering if my dad could make it that long. Wondering if the cable guys could live that long. I considered giving him a warning to get out of town, but decided the world had to be better with one less cable guy who couldn't tell the difference in his log book between the future and the past. So I let it go.

Oh, and the cable finally did come back on. And Tiger won, in no small part because I watched him. So all's well...for now.