Congratulations, Time Warner.

I’m pleased to announce that Time Warner Cable is the latest recipient of our prestigious Einstein Award in recognition of my middle-of-the-night telephone encounter with a tech support bozo named Mia. (It’s probably an alias.)

The Story
So here’s what happened. Last night after a 3 a.m. bathroom run I decide to sit at my desk for a few minutes to check email and discover that my cable modem is offline. I call Time Warner. First, let me tell you ... they have these extremely scary computerized androids who answer the phone and pretend they’re people. The message starts out with: “Welcome to Time Warner Cable. Please tell me why you’re calling today. You can say, ‘my cable service isn't working’ or ‘I can’t connect to the Internet.’” I wonder how many people actually say “I have hemorrhoids” and wait to see what happens. (Remind me to try that next time.)

The Highly-Trained Professional
I tell the android I can’t connect to the Internet so she transfers me to Mia Einstein, who asks for my home phone number. I’m figuring she’ll tell me there’s a local outage and I’ll just go back to bed. NO SUCH LUCK. Mia says she doesn’t see any outages, so to verify what the problem is could I please turn off my Mac, unplug the modem from the router, plug it directly into a port on the back of my computer, reboot the computer, stand on my head and sing the second verse from “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” (Just kidding about the last part.) Her instructions make me want to cry. Sam and I have two large Macintosh computer systems, an external back-up drive, stereo speakers, two telephone lines, two lamps, an Epson printer, a cable modem, a router, a credit card terminal and a fax machine, each with at least two cables and a power supply. THE BACK OF MY DESK IS A SNAKE PIT. I unplug the router but can’t figure out which line links back to my computer. While I put down the phone to wrestle with cords, Mia repeatedly tries to reset the cable modem. She insists she isn’t getting a signal so the problem has to be my router. She tells me to flip it over, do I see a Macintosh address or an IP address on the bottom, how old is the router, do I know its mother’s maiden name, is there a stand-by button, which lights are blinking and can I unplug it from the wall without rupturing my vertebrae.

The Upshot
After 40 minutes of this crap Mia finally says, “Let me try one more thing.” I hear her typing. Then she says, “I just wanted to check again for outages. Nope, I don’t see any outages in San Diego.” I say, “San Diego? I LIVE IN DALLAS.” There’s dead silence for a minute, then: “Mrs. Marks, please stop unplugging everything. There’s a widespread outage in your area.” I seriously consider killing her, but it’s after 4 a.m. and I’m definitely ready to go back to bed. I hang up and head down the hall when THE PHONE RINGS. It’s Mia, who says she forgot to thank me for calling Time Warner and is there anything else she can help me with. I say, “Yes. You can apologize to my husband for waking him up in the middle of the night.” Einstein.