Have a good laugh at my expense

I awoke before five this morning, as usual.  Now that the days are getting shorter, it's still dark at that time of day, so rather than going outside to watch the sunrise, I go to the computer.  This morning, I had no Internet.  
My first thought was to go finish my cup of coffee before calling support for help; I should have hung onto that thought.  But I said to myself, "Let's get this over with."  
Calling Internet support always involves crawling around on the floor looking for wires, plugging them in, unplugging them.  As I get older, I can't read the little words on the back of the modem and router very well and have to use a flashlight to see what's what.  
I hate all that.  But I love my Internet, so what am I to do?  
So I hunt up my list of numbers and call Dish.  
Yes, friends and neighbors, I called my television provider looking for support with my Internet.  
The man tells me I'll have to call Century Link; I grumbled at him, hung up, and then realized what I had done.  I'll bet he thought I was totally crazy.
One good thing about Century-Link (which used to be Embarq, which used to be something else) is that their tech support people are from this country, so there's no accent to deal with.  I told the guy who answered that I had no Internet; I asked him if he wanted me to unplug from the router, because that's usually what they ask me to do; he said no, and then was silent for a good five minutes.  
Then he said, "Oh, I see the problem.  Can someone be at home between three and five o'clock today so we can send someone out?"  
"Well... I guess so."  
And that was that.  I've never had a problem they couldn't help me with on the phone, and I didn't want to commit to staying home on a Saturday, but whatever.  
I got to looking at things after I hung up the phone and saw a blue wire plugged into the router with the other end not plugged into anything.  Somehow that didn't seem right, so I plugged it into my computer in an appropriate hole.  I rebooted the modem and the computer, and viola, I had Internet.  
Now to call and cancel the appointment for this afternoon.  
This time I got hold of a female tech person, and asked her to cancel.  I could barely hear her.  It seems the older I get, the quieter people talk.  Anyhow, she informed me that my Internet connection was "intermittent", I could lose service at any time, and I needed to check the telephone wire leading to the computer.  
By then it was 5:30 A.M., my Internet was working just dandy, thank-you-very-much, and I don't like to play with wires.  I didn't want to fix what wasn't broken.  I told her that if and when I had a connection problem, I would call back.  She suggested I might want to replace the phone cord and we said our grumpy goodbyes.  As I type this, everything is still working as well as it ever has.  
We'll see what happens.
   

Slow Internet

Don't you hate when your computer is suddenly as slow as molasses?  
I spend a lot of time farming on Facebook; so the first thought I had was, "Facebook is messing up again."  
Because lots of times, Facebook (or Farmville) is the culprit.  So I tried some websites that normally load instantly for me, such as Craigslist.  Good grief, they were barely inching along.  
I downloaded a Farmville toolbar to my Firefox browser yesterday, a toolbar that snags all the free gifts to my gift box automatically so I don't miss any goodies.  I know, most of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about.  But trust me, if you play Farmville, this toolbar is a must-have.  
Chrome is my browser of choice, but the toolbar only works on IE and Firefox.  So once I installed it on Firefox, I minimized that browser so it could snag all the gifts for me, and used Chrome for surfing.  
Last night, things were moving slower and slower.  My first thought was that I should not have downloaded that toolbar.  I always blame myself first for any computer problem, because I am such a non-techie person.  
Next thought to run through my head was this:  "Dang it, if this were a PC instead of a Mac, I could take it anywhere to get it worked on; now I'll have to get it to the Plaza in downtown Kansas City."  
This morning I turned on my computer and it was still slow.  Slower even than dialup, if you can believe that.  
"I've messed my my Mac," I thought.  
Cliff got up early this morning, opened up the laptop to check Craigslist and said, "This thing is barely moving."  
So it isn't my Mac!  It's the Internet connection!   
I called a Century Link tech.  
I always hate to do this, because I know it will involve a huge chunk of time and a lot of frustration as I turn off and turn on and unplug and replug everything involved with my computer, crawling on my hands and knees under a cluttered desk.  
Once I had explained our problem, the tech guy said, "OK, go to start..."
"I'm on a Mac," I told him.  "I don't have 'start'."  
"Oh; we're all Windows people here, so let me get some instructions."
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it was unwarranted.  He did just fine helping me on my Mac.  
Just as I had expected, I was told to unhook the router; the computer was plugged in to a filter, and I removed that.  He told me to click on one thing and another, type in this and that (hash?), read to him what came up, turn things off, put wires into different holes.  Whew.   
But when we were through, my computer was up to speed once again, and I thanked the man.  
"One more thing," he said.  "How would you rate Century Link as an Internet provider?  Would you recommend us?"  
"That question really isn't applicable," I said.  "We're out in the country and don't have any other options."  
If I had a choice, I'd have cable; it's faster than DSL.  But I don't, so I didn't bother to tell him that.
"Well then, how would you rate the help you've just received, on a scale of one to five?"  
"Oh, you've earned yourself a five."  
"Thank you very much; is there anything else I can do to help you?"  
"Nope."  
The things I have to do in order to play on my Farmville farm.