Moving Right Along...

In the interest of not having to defend myself, which is one of those EXTREMELY non-enjoyable tasks which got old almost immediately after I became old enough to hold an opinion, I will say only the following: A conversation was had; issues were cleared up. Most plans have been suspended pending various people's unrelated decisions. And I still totally adore their cat. (Not QUITE as much as my Snicker-kitty; just NEARLY as much. Seriously: adorable freakin' cat, with a purr like an outboard motor.)

Right now, my main problems are twofold: technical problems, and dental problems. (Well, threefold, if you count the fact that the dental problems will lead to financial problems, most likely....even WITH insurance!)

Technical problems first: Foolishly, I accepted a recommendation from one of my colleagues to work on a computer for one of the staff where I work. The person who owns the computer is a very nice lady, with a very nice husband who works for the same employer in a different department; and they live about a mile from me. So after work one evening, I walked to their house thinking "This should be easy enough..."

I had forgotten about the doctrine of Famous Last Words, alas.

The problem: their computer, an old-ish machine custom-built by a friend of theirs several years ago, could no longer connect to the Internet. They had AT&T/Yahoo DSL service, and a quick (hour-long) phone call to their help desk revealed that the problem was not on their end. So at about 9 PM, I said: "I think I'll need to come back tomorrow and try a few more things." And they said "Sure, fine, what do we owe you?" and I said, "Nothing, til I fix it."

I tell you, for the next four days, I did every single solitary thing that one could possibly do to get a computer to connect to the network, and it would NOT do it. I restarted the machine; I restarted the router. I tried IPCONFIG and received an error message telling me that "this command is not supported" (huh??? This was where I knew I was in deep weeds.) I talked, each day, to all of my colleagues, brainstorming possibilities. "Blow away the TCP/IP stack." "Reset the WINSOCK." "Try this link here..." "Did you try what they recommended on that site there?"

And each night, I did it all. I uninstalled every single client, service, and protocol related to networking. I ran NETSH. I ran CHKDISK to make sure it wasn't the hard drive. I even, as a last resort, recommended a new network card. None of it did a damn thing.

Finally at the end of the fourth night, I had to admit that I was completely out of ideas. They were very nice about it; they said they had known for a while that they'd need a new machine soon anyhow, but they'd been trying to stretch the life on this one, and so on and so on. I wouldn't take their money--I hadn't, after all, solved the problem, and in fact I'd taken up their time for about ten hours. So the net result was a loss of ten bucks--I had to take a cab home one night because the rain was coming down so hard I was afraid I'd drown just trying to cross the street.

Needless to say, this did nothing for my self-confidence.

And somewhere in this block of time, I also had a dentist appointment. This is a new dentist; my old dental clinic closed down unexpectedly, and sent my X-rays--done a few months ago--to be photocopied or microfiched or whatever it is they do now. So my x-rays were unavailable, and my new dentist had to take a whole new set, which my insurance refused to pay for because apparently they approve only one full set of x-rays per three years. Whatever.

Then, after the X-rays, the doctor went over the treatment plan. Just by the numbers: Four root canals. One (possibly two) extractions. Six (possibly seven) crowns. Fillings in all but two teeth--this is in addition to the fillings already there, and in some cases replacing those fillings. End cost for the whole shebang? $14,000. Now, granted: this was meant as a three-year process, with the big costs coming now and at the end (root canals now, crowns at the end); I have dental insurance and a flex-spending plan which, in foresight of all this, I ramped up to the full amount allowable. But all the same: can you imagine the amount of time I'm going to have to spend in the dentist's chair? Or the amount of novocaine I'm going to take on board?? Or what I could have spent that $14,000 on? (Hint: I really want a car!)

So: yeah. I have OTHER concerns too, you know. Currently foremost among them: will I break my now-two-week-old streak of picking the WORST cabdrivers in Chicago for my ride home from downtown on Saturday? The last two weeks I've practically had to kiss the ground after slamming the door behind me; seriously, I've never felt so much like I was taking my life into my hands, even when I used to shoot heroin. I didn't used to wear seat belts in the back seat of taxicabs; the past two weeks have TOTALLY changed my mind about THAT.

Wish me luck...