it takes brains....

And apparently no one at the phone company has any*....Now I know I might be cursing myself by criticizing the phone company, but after the week we've been through I'm willing to take the chance.

Remember back to the day when your home and/or work phone was your primary means of communication? Back when if you were out and you needed to make a phone call, you had to find a public telephone located somewhere along your travels?? Well, Cee and I pretty much still live in those good old days. Yes we have a cellphone....A cellphone, as in one...and we only take it along as an afterthought; you know, so we don't need to find a public phone...I know, we are an anomaly these days, freaks, if you will. I keep threatening to bring us into the present and get us both iphones, or some other kind of smart phone, but for now we are just happy the way we are.

Well last week I noticed that we were getting some static on the line at home . I didn't think too much of it, but then it started getting worse, and by Saturday night when I was on the phone with my friend it was really bad. Sunday morning it was complete static and there was no dial tone. Bright and early Monday morning, I headed over to Cee's mum's house to call the phone company....and so it began.

I always cringe when I have to call any large conglomerate like the phone company, you know what I'm talking about; you get put on hold and told how important your call is, asked if you want to be spoken with in French, (or whatever other language your country supports), told your call is in sequence, press 1 for this, 2 for that, etc. I got a pleasant robotic female who told me I only had to say what I wanted and she would gladly oblige, so I did and when it came to the part where she asked me for a contact number, I simply said:

"If I had a contact number, I wouldn't need to call you."

Pleasant Female Robotic Voice: ".............I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that, can you repeat it?"

Me: "I don't have a contact number"

P.F.R.V.: "..................I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that, can you repeat it?"

Me.: "No number!" Shouting now, like it's going to make a difference.

P.F.R.V.: ".................I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that, can you repeat it?"

Me: "Expletive."

So I hung up and called back and managed to get put through to whatever country they are outsourcing their customer service, and got a very pleasant man who at first seemed to have it all together. I explained to him that I was calling from someone else's house, our line was completely dead and we needed someone to come out and take a look. He asked me if we had checked the demarcation box to see if it was working. I told him that we had gone down to the demarcation box and everything was plugged in. He asked if we had plugged a phone into the box, I told him no. He said,

"Can you go do that now?"

I said: "Well, you see, here's my problem with that: I just explained to you that I'm not in my house. Now, if you really want, I can get in the car, drive all the way back home and plug a phone in the box. Then, if it doesn't work, I guess I'll have to get back in the car and drive all the way over here again and call you back, unless you'd like to hold on while I do that?" ....I was joking, it never hurts to insert a little levity where you can....

He said: "No, no need to do that, the tech will do that for you." ....guess he didn't think I was funny.....

Things proceeded fine, and we arranged a convenient 8-hour window in which we should be home to expect the tech to be at our house, and then he said,

"Can I have a contact number?"

Me: Sigh....."Well here's my problem with that; My cellphone's battery is dead, and I'm calling from my mother-in-law's house, and she's going out this afternoon, so if the tech calls here she might not be here to answer, and even if she did answer, how is she supposed to let me know the tech has called, because our home line is dead?"

Him: "Can I have that number?"

Me: "Which one, the cellphone that's dead, or my M.I.L's number that no-one will answer?"

Him: "Yes."

Me: Sigh.

Him: "Ma'am?"

Me: "Here you go, I'll give you both, but the tech won't get through, so it's useless."

Him: "Thank you." They are nothing if not polite.

So anyway, I came back home and proceeded to wait, noticing that we'd been blissfuly free from annoying telemarketing calls the last week, and seriously considering going and calling the phone company back to cancel the tech, but he arrived and was very good at his job and fixed the line. Turned out it was just plain old wear and tear on the line that had opened it up, so he just had to do a bit of repair. Voila, we are now able to receive all the calls the telemarketers can fling at us.

Want to know the kicker? My mother-in-law called me later that evening to let me know that when she got home the tech called and said:

"I hear you're having trouble with your phone?"

M.I.L: "No."

Tech: long pause "I got a call you were having trouble....."

M.I.L: "No, that would be my son, they called from here you see, because their line is dead."

Tech: "Oh, okay....well I'm on my way if you want to let them know."

M.I.L.: "How would I do that? Their phone is dead."

Tech: "Oh...oh yeah....well, I'm on my way"

He called back a few minutes later to tell her he was having trouble finding her house....to which she replied that she could tell him how to get there, but the trouble was at ours....but if he'd like she'd make him a cup of tea and they could have a nice visit. He politely declined. Like I said, it takes brains.

I made some new hats to use up stash. I had intended only to make one. This one, in fact:

This is the Druidess Beret. It calls for dk weight, which I used. When it was all said and done it was a bit smallish for my taste, although still cute. I like them insanely slouchy. So I cast on another one in worsted and upped the needle size to 5.00 mm for the body and crown decreases.

It came out more tam-like, and so it's perfect. It will be great for holding in my brains, which apparently are in short supply these days.

If you would like to hold in your brains with this beret, you can find the pattern here: Druidess Beret

* If you work for the phone company and are reading this, I'm sure you are an exception to the rule!