CSI: Conroe, Texas

When you go on vacation during Christmas, you expect to spend time in the loving bosom of your family, not at a former crime scene.

We packed three people and seemingly tens of thousands of presents into the car headed to Texas to visit my wife’s family over the Christmas. Had this been a less buy time of year or we had less cargo, we might have stayed with her sister for a night or two. But given the body and present count, we checked into, what I’ll call, the Braymont Inn, a few blocks from my sister-in-law’s house.

The Braymont is a national chain with reasonable rates a continental breakfast. (I think the continent was Atlantis, everything tasted wet and salty.)

A 10-hour drive isn’t difficult, just boring. So when you arrive at your destination, you’re eager to get out and meet people and catch up on news and eat and laugh and party. These things we did. And then it was time for bed. Even a motel bed feels good at this point, regardless of how many “How filthy is your motel room?” exposés you’ve seen on the local TV news during Sweeps Week.

Morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont. Boiler broken. They’re looking into it. They’re sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll be fixed tomorrow.

This isn’t inconvenience, this is bordering on a crisis. My Christmas spirit is being sapped because I can’t rinse the 10-hour drive off in a torrent of hot, South Texas soft water. OK, we can handle this. Not killed, made stronger. A quick tepid rinse and then my wife made the discovery that will forever characterize this trip: the blood-spatter pattern.

She was reaching for something that had rolled under the bed and lifted up the sheet to see that the box spring fabric had an old blood stain. Not an “I cut my finger and a few drops of blood came out” spot. Not an “I was whittling a new moose call and the knife slipped and I need three stitches” stain. Not even an “I smacked my head against the wall stumbling around in the dark and head wounds bleed a lot and please go get the ice bucket” mess.

This was a basketball-sized, something-criminal-and-probably-a-felony-happened-here blood puddle. It had been cleaned many times to extract as much blood – or evidence – as possible, but there’s really no way to return the box spring to its pristine state after the boys form the crime lab have finished with it.

We were aghast. Not that something unfortunate had happened in this room earlier. This was Conroe, Texas, after all, misdemeanor assault capital of Montgomery County. But that Braymont management thought that their guests would be OK with sleeping on a mattress that could have starred in a “Law and Order” episode. This was revelation No. 1 in a two-revelation process that will keep us from ever staying in a Braymont Inn again.

We dressed as quickly as a possible to report this to the front desk, hoping they’d be as outraged as we were. The young man behind the desk turned out to be the son of the franchise owner, a young man in his late teens or early 20s, a young man who doesn’t exactly grasp the concept of customer service, a young man who would find the concept of “Do you want fries with that?” too intellectually rigorous.

We told him what we found, suggested he contact the authorities and find us another room ASAP. He said a room would be ready for us by the time we finished breakfast. Mmmm, Braymont breakfast: salty, undercooked scrambled eggs and the best Danish that Sam’s Club had to offer – last month. We got our new room keycard, packed our stuffed, transferred rooms and crossed our fingers.

The rest of the day passed with good fellowship, board games, too much good food, presents and my debut on Dance Dance Revolution. (For the record, I stink.) Back to the Braymont. The mattresses in the second room seemed to pass muster. Not on the comfort scale necessarily, but at least we didn’t have Detective Columbo hunting for crime-scene clues in our room.

Ahh, morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont, again. Boiler still broken. They’re still looking into it. They’re still sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll still be fixed tomorrow. These guys really know how to satisfy customers, who could become repeat customers or write reviews on hotel Web sites.

You know the drill: tepid shower, family fellowship, food in abundance, Christmas cheer.

That night was our last with the Braymont. It passed without incident. And in the morning, praise Jesus, there was hot water. Glorious hot water. We packed, checked out, silently wished the other guests well because we knew what they were in for. Ten hours home and we went straight to the computer to write the most scathing review of the Conroe, Texas Braymont Inn we could.

It’s been three years. Hopefully there is new management, a new attitude, or at least new sheets at the Braymont.

5 hours, 4 states, 2 people, 1 car and the worst restaurant in Nebraska

A nice warm spring evening, time on our hands, what to do? Drive to Nebraska!

My wife, Malissa, had moved here from Houston recently and was eager to explore her new territory. Plus, she had spent as little time in Great Plains states as I had spent in Texas. So with some time on our hands and gas money (way back when it was only $1.25/gallon) burning a hole in our collective pockets, we trundled off for a long drive to add Nebraska to the list of states that Malissa had visited. Little did we know what culinary adventures awaited us.

We headed west on I-70, and just past Topeka headed north to the Nebraska state line.

Let me tell you something about my wife: she marvels at the world around her and drinks in images and experiences the way a desert island castaway drinks ice water – with gusto. So all the farms, wildflowers, cows, row crops, silos, Indian casinos, little towns, hills and rusted signs fascinated her. I’d seen it all before, but seeing it new through her eyes was, well, eye-opening.

We were cruising along, nowhere to go, no timetable, beautiful sunset, life is good. At the Nebraska state line we stopped so I could take her picture under the “Welcome to Nebraska” sign. About 90 minutes into the road trip, we started getting a little hungry. No worries, we thought. We’ll stop at the next town, village, city, hamlet, wide bend in the road or metropolis and grab a bite.

Welcome to Nebraska City, Nebraska. The county seat of Otoe County, Nebraska City has a little more than 7,000 residents. Arbor Day was invented in Nebraska City. Lewis and Clark visited in 1804. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It has a Firefighting Museum. Nice little place.

The Nebraska City Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau lists 33 restaurants of various size. I’ll bet 32 of them are great. We chose number 33. To protect the innocent, I’ll call our dining location Balentino’s Pizza and Pasta. We figured, what can go wrong with pizza and pasta? Lots.

We weren’t expecting 5-star French cuisine, ostrich steaks with mango chutney, turducken or braised tips of lamb in port wine reduction with a glaze of wild mushrooms. A clean bathroom would have been nice. We didn’t get that either.

What do you generally want from restaurant personnel? Attention, prompt service, a smile. Sure, that’s why we leave tips. At Balentino’s that night, it took about five minutes for anyone to realize we wanted to pay them money in exchange for goods and services. OK, we can overcome this. We’ll just do the salad and pasta buffet. In the meantime, the iced tea tasted like river water.

The buffet had a small selection: something that looked like pasta, something that looked like lettuce and roughly seven salad toppings. I’m not usually a picky eater (despite what my mother will tell you about me and vegetables when I was a kid), but I generally like my marinara sauce to taste like something other than nothing. Pick a spice, pick an herb. Use them. Use something, anything. Salt doesn’t count. Red is a not a flavor.

Salad next. How can you screw up salad? Balantino’s found a way. To say that they kept the salad fixins’ chilled would be a gross understatement. The peas and the chopped hard-boiled eggs were frozen. Repeat, frozen. Solid. Eggs, frozen solid. The bright green frozen peas were better suited as projectiles than ingestibles. How delicious is that?

Despite the long drive behind us and the long drive ahead of us and the hunger in between, we got out of there as quickly as possible. We couldn’t take it anymore. It was that bad. Balantino’s everywhere are diminished because of this one restaurant.

I don’t want to paint the entire culinary industry of Nebraska City with such a broad brush, but there is nowhere to go but up. The good people of the Cornhusker State deserve better.

We continued our journey, crossing from Nebraska City into Iowa, stopping to take a picture under the “Welcome to Iowa” sign. Fifteen minutes later we entered Missouri – it was too dark now to take a picture under the Welcome sign – and began the two-hour drive home. A wonderful trip, albeit a non-nutritious one. I think we picked up some Cokes and chips at a truckstop during the last leg of the trip.

My wife got an eyeful of the countryside, we added two new states to her “states visited” list and have a great new anecdote. All in all, a great evening.

An open letter to the people of Earth

Dear Earthlings,

WTF? Seriously. WTF?

Do you guys have any idea of what you’re doing? There aren’t that many Earth-like planets in the Universe and you’re all on the verge of screwing yours up. What do you propose to do then? Ideas? I didn’t think so.

I’ve been around the galactic block a few times and I’ve got to say that y’all (to use your Earth parlance) have a pretty nice planet. You’ve got water, flora, fauna, land masses, cheesecake, biodiversity that is the envy of beings everywhere and you’re throwing it all away.

For what? So more single-occupant vehicles can clog your arterial surface connectors? So you can have more stuff that comes inside other stuff wrapped inside more stuff, all of which has to be discarded? So you can drain the planet of all its resources? So you kill each other at an increasing rate?

Seriously, this is the best you can do? How long have you been evolving? (One of our undercover agents on your planet told us that many of your kind believe in something called “intelligent design.” If there truly was a being designing all that chaos, don’t you think that he would have a) done a better job, and b) designed people so that they wouldn’t poop where they eat, which is essentially what you’re doing to your planet?)

We’ve been watching your planet for a long time, all the while with fingers crossed. Your planet is warming at an alarming rate. Do you know what happens when things warm up? They get hot, swampy, things that can’t stand the heat die, and eventually everything catches on fire. It also smells like Bayonne, N.J., in August. You don’t want that, do you? I didn’t think so.

I’ve been to failed planets. It’s not a pretty sight. Jerzib-Crustaceous 7 used to be a lot like your Earth. You know what’s it’s like now? The closest analogy your species would understand is Houston in summer without the air conditioning, public sanitation, cheesecake or oxygen.

Get a grip, people. You don’t want to end up like the Jerzibbians, fried to a crisp with no water or sense of humor. They don’t even laugh at this joke: How many Jerzibbians does it take to change a light bulb? None, their planet is dead.

You’ve got some time to turn this around. It doesn’t take anything but commonsense and cooperation. Don’t they teach that in Earth kindergartens?

DON’T SCREW IT UP THIS TIME.

Sincerely,
Zorblat the Magnificent, Esq.
Celestial Overland and Master of Parsects 17-22, 24 and subparsects 31a and 32a

Death and Taxes

Of the twin inevitabilities of death and taxes, I choose taxes.

I spent an afternoon filling out boxes such as “Form 1120S, Schedule M-1, Reconciliation of Income (Loss) per Books with Income (Loss) per Return. Note: Schedule M-3 required instead of Schedule M-1 if total assets are $10 million or more.”

Trust me, I’m not in danger of having to use Schedule M-3 any time soon.

I’ve spent too much time at www.irs.gov. I’ve spent too much time reading instructions like:
“Enter the amount from Form 1120S, page 1, line 21. Enter the income (loss) without reference to the shareholder’s:
* Basis in the stock of the corporation and in any indebtedness of the corporation to the shareholders (section 1366(d)),
* At-risk limitations, and
* Passive activity limitations.
These limitations, if applicable, are determined at the shareholder level.
Line 1 should not include rental activity income (loss) or portfolio income (loss).”

I realize that we all need to pay our taxes to hold up our end of the social contract. I don’t have a problem with that. On balance, the federal, state, local, school, water district, sewer district, cemetery districts, and all the other taxing authorities we are in hock to use the money wisely on projects and services that add to the collective good.

We get our communal panties in a bunch – and rightfully so – when we read about taxes paying for $900 hammers, $1500 toilet seats or $10 trillion on the Iraq War.

But think about, they generally get it right: most streets are repaired, the schools teach our kids, the trash is picked up, the subways run on time, the bad guys are kept in jail, the sewers carry out the icky stuff and clean water comes out of the tap.

If the economy continues to tank and governments cut their budgets are deeply as anticipated, we’ll soon find out what it’s like to live with unrepaired streets, closed schools and legions of unemployed workers who need government-funded social services that can’t be funded.

Taxes aren’t fun, but given the alternatives, they are necessary.

25 Random Things About Me

The latest fad/time waster on Facebook is “25 Random Things About Me,” a list of – wait for it – 25 random facts about themselves that people share with the world. It’s funny, pathetic, vain, pompous and delightfully voyeuristic all at the same time. So naturally I want in on it. So here I am, doing my best “look at me, look at me, look at me” dance. I now present “25 Random Things About Me.”

25. In my next life I want to come back as a jazz pianist.
24. Cheesecake is the greatest food – ever!
23. My favorite color is British Racing Green.
22. I’ve never read “Huckleberry Finn.”
21. My comedy heroes are the Marx Brothers, Bob and Ray, Monty Python, Tom Lehrer and Dave Barry.
20. My brother died last summer and I really miss him.
19. When/if I grow up, I want to learn to tap dance.
18. I used to run into burning buildings on purpose.
17. Cat person, not a dog person.
16. My greatest fear is being alone.
15. I once stood next to a former Duchess. That’s the closest I’ve gotten to royalty but not the closest I’ll get. I would love to use “your highness” in an actual conversation, and not just with my wife or cat, though one of them truly deserves the honor.
14. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart changed my life.
13. Good glove, no hit.
12. I was a pirate in a previous life. I know this for a fact.
11. Snakes scare the bejesus out of me.
10. I don’t have a middle name. My family was too poor to afford them.
9. When I win the lottery, I’m going to buy a 1968 Jaguar XKE V-12 convertible.
8. My best friend, Steve, and I look like we could be twin brothers. Mom liked him best.
7. I’m not as dumb as I look.
6. My favorite Scrabble words are aa, gnu and yurt.
5. I have a killer recipe for white chocolate brownies with pecans.
4. One of the things I want to do before I die is be in a huge pie fight.
3. The most scared I’ve ever been was once parked on the side of I-64 in southern Indiana while a tornado hit about a quarter-mile ahead of me.
2. Coffee is now my drug of choice.
1. I am the luckiest man alive. I have a wonderful wife, four fantastic children and a great family. I have a job I like and a roof over my head. But my natural state of being minimizes these triumphs and I spend way too much time thinking about all the bad stuff. I need an attitude adjustment.

To my daughter on her 16th birthday

My little girl isn’t so little any more.

Alexandra Rose Wilke turns 16 on Monday. She’ll go for a driver’s license test. There will be more boys asking for dates. Soon she’ll be going to college. Career, marriage, children can’t be far behind.

She’s come a long way. It hasn’t always been a smooth road. When she was young, the word stubborn barely described her obstinacy. But one thing she’s always had was a great sense of humor – intentional or not – and a great sense of comedic timing.

When she was in pre-school, I began writing down some of her quips. I called them “Alexisms.” They run from pre-school through junior high. I think they show what a great kid she was, is and will continue to be.

So without further ado, and with the narration I wrote at the time, I present the wit and wisdom of Ally Wilke. (Her nickname has gone from Alex to Ally.)

* Alex was waking around with her shirt tail out and she told me: “I’m not a tuckin-in person.”

* Alex was playing outside at a friend’s house when they spotted two butterflies lazily wandering by.  “Those two butterflies are mating,” her friend said with the authority of someone who learned about it in second grade. Later, when they spotted the same two butterflies flying separately, Alex said: “They got a divorce.”

* I was walking Alex to the bus stop. She was bemoaning the fact that “no one plays with me at recess.” “No one?” I asked.  “Well, only, Joshua, Paul, Lance, Peydon, Kirsten and not Jason anymore because he moved.”

* Standing at the bus stop, I noticed Alex’s hair was mussed up. I told her that I needed to do a better job brushing her hair.  Alex said: “Don’t worry, my hair fixes itself in the afternoon. That’s what makes me special.”

* Driving Alex to school this morning, two weeks before her birthday:  “I feel 7 already.”

* We were playing tennis in the street this afternoon, when Alex hit an errant shot that almost hit Patch the cat. Mused Alex, “I lose more cats that way.”

* Alex had finished performing her guitar piece for her music class and next up was Eric telling some jokes. The kids were sitting on a semicircle of bleachers watching their classmates. After Eric’s first joke, Alex stood up and walked to the back of the room where I was standing.  I bent down to speak with her, expecting something like “Please tie my shoe” or “I need to go to the bathroom.”  Instead, she whispered, “Ba-da-ba.” A rim shot!

* Our new kitten was cleaning himself. I asked Alex, “How did Tiger learn to clean himself, because he didn’t have a mom to teach him?”  Quoth Alex, “He must have watched me and Xan pretend we were cats.”

* During a time I was between jobs, I was taking Alex and some friends on a drive, when 3-year-old Will asked me what I was going to be for Halloween. Before I could answer, Alex said, “Dad, you could go as a guy who doesn’t have a job.”

* I was rummaging through the medicine cabinet looking for talcum powder. Alex wandered by asking what I was doing.
“Looking for talcum powder,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Baby powder.”
“I don’t think we have any. We haven’t had a baby for a while.”

* A nice spring day, Alex and I decided to go for a bike ride. She hopped on her bike, saying, “Let’s go see what this baby can do!”

* We’ve been in a drought all summer. On hot and muggy afternoon, we had a brief rain shower. When Alex saw the rain, she put down her drink and headed outside, saying: “I’m going outside to dance.”

* We were taking Ally’s friend Kirsten with us on a very chilly winter day to swim at the city’s indoor pool. As we were pulling out of the driveway, Kirsten asked, “Which pool are we going to?” Noting how cold it was, I said, “the outdoor one.” Without missing a beat, Ally said, “It’s cheaper this time of year.”

* Ally and I were listening to NPR’s news show All Things Considered. Ally didn’t quite believe the name of the program. She asked the radio: “What if I called you up and told you I got a puppy. Would you consider it?”

* I was talking with Ally this morning about her cat, Pyewhacket. Based with recently acquired fifth-grade math knowledge, she said: “Maybe we should call him 3.14-whacket.”

* Ally and I were at a railroad crossing waiting for a stopped train to continue. There was a small space visible under the railcar in front of us. Using her keen logic, Ally said: “I wish we had a clown car.”

* We were driving to the New Jersey Shore to visit relatives. As we turned onto Long Beach Island, the street numbers started at 15th and began rising. We were looking for my aunt and uncle’s home on 129th Street. I said, “You mean we’ve got 100 blocks to go?” Then Ally said, “Are we still going to be in New Jersey?”

* I was on the phone with Ally asking about the New Year’s Eve party she went to. She went to a sleep over with her friends Paige and Xan, the two friends she generally hangs out with after school. She said, “We stayed up late and acted like idiots.” Then I quipped, “How is that different than a regular day.” Without breaking stride, she said, “We were wearing hats.”

* We were discussing all the Harry Potter books and movies with her stepbrother, Joel, who was just beginning to read the series. We were throwing around titles Joel was unfamiliar with. He asked, “What order do the books come in?” Ally piped up, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.”

* We watched the movie Happy, Texas. Afterwards, my wife said there really was a town called Happy, Texas. Ally asked incredulously, “What other towns are our there? Emotionally Disturbed, Louisiana?”

* We knew this was going to be the last Christmas for Santa Claus. We felt lucky that we had gotten away with it for as long as we did. A few days after Christmas, Ally was taking some trash out to the curb and looked in a bag. She saw the box that her big Santa present had come in. The jig was up. Ally told her mom that she had seen the Santa box and it was OK that Santa didn’t come to our house any more. “But I’ll still believe in Santa for the little kids and the poor kids,” she said. I have never been so proud to be a dad as I was in that moment.

I’m still proud of her every single day. She’s grown into a wonderful young woman with a bright future.

Ally, I reluctantly give you permission to grow up.

Love, Dad

F. Scott Fitzgerald was right

“The rich are different from you and me.”

Wall Street bonuses of $18.4 billion – billion with a B – while the companies were losing zillions of dollars – zillion with a Z – and getting crajillions of dollars – crajillions with a capital C – in taxpayer bailout funds.

The Secretary of the Treasury (if this country still has any treasure) forgot to pay about $34,000 in self-employment taxes. This man will oversee the IRS. Now the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services didn’t pay about $128,000 in taxes for using a car and driver given to him by a prominent donor.

Remember Leona Helmsley? Owned a chain of hotels, husband owned the Empire State Building. “We don’t pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes.”

The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million. The 17.2 percent tax rate in 2006 was the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 largest taxpayers in 1992, although the richest 400 Americans paid more tax on an inflation-adjusted basis than any year since 2000.

All this brings to mind the old joke: How do you make a million dollars? Start with $900,000 and invest wisely.

Does wealth make you stupid? Forgetful? Arrogant? Or does wealth – especially long-term or inherited wealth – put a person out of touch with the great unwashed? Does a sense of entitlement kick in when your bank balance exceeds a certain point? (That point has several zeros between the dollar sign and the decimal point.) Or don’t they care?

I wish, I dream, I hope, I fantasize about having the opportunity to be this stupid!

An ode to my state on Kansas Day

‘Twas the night before Kansas Day and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring not even an ornate box turtle.
Carrie Nation’s stocking were hung by the chimney with care
in hopes that the WCTU soon would be there.

The farmers were nestled all snug in the beds
with visions of crop subsidies dancing in their heads.
With Kathleen in her kerchief and Sam in his cap
having just settled down to a bipartisan nap.

The moon on the breast of some hard winter wheat
gave the luster of midday to objects down at my feet.
When what to my wondering eyes should demur
but a miniature sleigh and 8 tiny governors

With a little old driver so lively a sprite
I knew in an instant ‘twas William Allen White.
More rapid than Western Meadowlarks his coursers they came
and whistled and shouted and called them by name

Now Finney, now Hayden,
Now Carlin, now Graves,
On Docking, on Bennett,
On Avery and Landon.
To the top of the porch,
To the top of the wall,
What’s the Matter With Kansas?
Well, nothing at all!

And then in a twinkling I heard in the kitchen
the preening and spinning of each politician.
And as drew in my head and was turning around
down the chimney Mr. White came with a bound.

His wit how it wrinkled, his prose oh so merry.
The Sage of Emporia, read from Goodland to Perry.
He had a broad face and little round hips
that shook when he laughed like a prairie populist

He sang Home on the Range, talked of John Brown’s Body,
Spoke of Bleeding Kansas, Nicodemous and of course Dodge City.
Then laying a finger aside of his nose,
Giving a nod up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his governors shouted anew,
away they flew like chasing fresh tax revenue
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove down the turnpike
Happy Kansas Day to all, ad astera per aspera, and to all good night.

A 15% gratuity will be added to this blog post

We ordered pizza last night, “the usual,” 2 large, original crust, one with pepperoni and pineapple and one with Italian sausage and bacon. Yummy. Only one problem: it took almost two hours for them to arrive.

Thanks to a series of problems – our ticket was misplaced, the wrong toppings were applied, new pies were made and delivery times were snafu’d – the “it’ll be there in 30 minutes” became 120 minutes, two hungry customers and a very apologetic pizza store manager. Because of the multiple woes, we were given the pizza pies gratis.

But we still tipped the driver. It wasn’t her fault. This brings up a concern I have about tipping.

When I have great, or even good, service at a restaurant, I tip well. When a pizza delivery driver brings me dinner, I tip well. When my barber makes me look half-civilized, I tip well. All of these are traditional service jobs. But all jobs have a service aspect to them, so why does the tipping stop?

When a furniture salesperson gets you a good deal on a couch and arranges quick delivery, where’s their tip? When the dental hygienist removes the gook from your teeth, where’s the tip? When the trash collectors come by first thing in the morning every Thursday, where is their tip? When the teen behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant takes your order and actually dishes up the correct items in a hot and timely fashion, where’s their tip? When the grocery cashier actually pays attention to what they’re doing and you don’t have to bag your own groceries, where’s their tip?

I think you see where I’m going with this. I don’t mind tipping for a job well done, but I don’t understand why it’s confined to the jobs it is.

Why not tip your blogger. Better yet, why not tip your underpaid public radio media relations worker? There’s a cause I think we can all get behind.

Done in by tech support

Here’s one of the many things that irk me: when a company screws up and makes you fix their problem. (I’m writing this as I’m on hold awaiting the second level of technical assistance.)

I had Internet service through a large international company whom we’ll call BT&T. I’m not going to identify them because of possible legal matters. Their service was fine for years. The price was reasonable. Then a few weeks ago, I canceled my landline phone service through BT&T, but kept Internet service. A week after that, they mistakenly canceled my Internet service.

This is where it gets irritating. I spent 1 hour and 9 minutes on a technical support phone call (on my day off) while a young man walked me through a zillion steps to re-register my computer because of their mistaken. We then tested the modem: fine. We tested the wireless connection: fine. We tested a few Web pages to make sure they’d load: fine. I thanked him for his patience and hung up. I restarted my computer and couldn’t connect to the Internet.

Let me tell you something about myself: I am not by nature a patient man. Patience, while a virtue, is a struggle for me. I need lots of controlled breathing and to focus on the short- and long-term objectives so my natural inclination to explode is overridden. Therefore, being on hold for waiting in the queue for the second level of technical support is not something I willingly or pleasantly do. I do it only because I need working Internet service. However, a cauldron of righteous indignation and barely controlled rage, martyrdom and resentment burbles underneath.

It’s not uncommon of me to leave doctor’s appointment if the physician is more than 30 minuets late. I don’t care if I’m bleeding profusely. My time is just as valuable as his. If he’s not startin,’ I’m departin.’ After once waiting 60 minutes past my scheduled appointment time and still never seeing the doctor, I left – angrily – and sent him a bill for 60 minutes of my time. He didn’t pay.

But back to being on hold.

The third technician of the morning was doing his level best to test the system. Nothing worked. Then my cell phone died. No wonder. I’d been on the phone with BT&T tech support continuously for three hours. 180 minutes of my life that a.) I’ll never get back and (more importantly) b.) NEVER FIXED THE PROBLEM. My tech ticket is now the property of the maintenance division. Who knows when they’ll be able to do anything about it? Probably Thursday sometime between 8 a.m. at 5:30 p.m. Could I please make myself available during that time?

I don’t care tech support is in Bangalore, India, or Bangor, Maine. They broke it, they need to fix it. Quickly. Permanently. On their dime. And yes, I would like to talk with a supervisor.