The week that was – but really should never have been

Last week started well enough.

Autumn temperatures. Rustling leaves. Schoolchildren waiting for buses. University students competing for parking spaces. Hot coffee. Whole-wheat toast. Fresh coffee. Hummingbirds on the feeder outside the kitchen window.

Yes, the week was set to start perfectly.

Then I tried to make a phone call. The phone was dead.

Our phone service comes to us by way of the Internet. We've learned that no phone means no Internet, too. Sure enough, that was the case.

Now, folks, I've lived long enough to know that phones and Internet access are not matters of survival for most of us. But they are like anything else we use all the time. We expect them to (1) be there and (2) work properly.

Is that too much to ask?

Apparently, yes, it is. Using my cellphone, whose service is proved by another company, I called our phone and Internet provider to see what was going on.

What's going on is what happens just about every time you call an 800 number these days. You are told by a computerized voice to listen carefully, because "our menu options have recently changed."

Well, what hasn't? Why do they have to tell me to listen carefully? How do they know I have a hearing problem? How do they know that listening to a cellphone is one of my biggest bugaboos?

So, after listening carefully for nearly 20 minutes while a computer occasionally broke in to tell me to keep listening carefully, I was told -- by a computer -- that the company was experiencing a widespread network outage. Was I assured by the news the company's crack repair gurus were on the job and that phone and Internet services would be restored "soon?"

Uh-huh.

Several hours later, my wife picked up the phone, purely out of habit, and dialed. The call went through. That's how we were notified our phone and Internet services were working again. Thanks for the heads up, guys.

But that was just the start of the week. That was only Monday. There are, as you know, seven days in a week -- seven glorious opportunities for mishaps, screw-ups, breakdowns and chaos. Just ask me. I know.

My wife put a load of laundry in our not quite 4-year-old washer. Instead of gurgling and whooshing like a proper washer, the machine made sounds akin to a factory where steel is pounded into something usable.

And, I must quickly add, when the load was shifted to the dryer, it also started making noises much too loud to be considered normal. Hot air should not sound like a locomotive.

Here's the thing about our washer and dryer. They are smaller than your average machines. When we moved the laundry upstairs and remodeled the hall bathroom, we had cabinets built to surround the laundry machines. Thus, replacing these machines is a bit dicey. Regular-size equipment won't fit in the cabinets.

So, we faced the age-old question: Do we sink money into repairs, or do we invest in new machines if we can find them?

As it turned out, we have an extended warranty on the washer, so we decided to aim for repairs. The repairman from the appliance store came and evaluated our situation. Both machines would need parts. The warranty company would have to approve the washer repair.

So I did what any red-blooded American fellow would do. I called the 800 number for the warranty company. It turned out to be the (1) wrong number and (2) wrong company. That's OK. I only spent about half an hour waiting for the computer to let me talk to a human, who gave me another number for another company -- which turned out to not be the company I needed. Finally, I got the right number for the right company. Soon a work order was dispatched to the appliance store for repairs.

But wait. There are still a few days left in the week.

On one of those days we went to lunch. I had a chicken sandwich. My wife had chicken noodle soup. Both were yummy. As we ate, my wife said she needed to call her friend Carol. I had my cellphone, so I dialed the number and handed the phone to my wife. During the transfer, the phone slipped out of our hands. It could have landed almost anywhere, but it landed in the bowl of soup. It couldn't have been there more than a second. That's exactly how long it takes a liquid to kill a cellphone.

The fellow at the cellphone repair store said it would be cheaper to get a new phone. So off I went to the phone store. Two cellphones (99 cents each) and two service contracts later, we were back in business.

And then there is our desktop computer. It's going kaput. And it refuses to talk to our printer, which won't accept Bluetooth jobs either.

You know, after nearly a week of this, I'm worried about what's around the corner. Or have we endured the siege? Maybe we're on the other side of the Week of Calamity. I sure hope so.

I hope the desktop computer lets me send this to the newspaper. I'd hate to start all over again.

Please. Work. That's all I ask.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missouri.