Only connect

I now have DSL. Which is great, because blogging from the bathroom had lost its charm. The tile was hard; the seating, unergonomic; the output metaphors, ungainly. And the only computer nimble enough to pick up the signal was my Asus, which is fine for travel, but not suited to serious work, or to blogging.

The back-and-forth with Verizon was amusing, when it didn't make me want to put a ballpoint pen through my eyeballs.

On returning from the most recent trip to Portland, the signal was simply gone. Now, this wasn't entirely unexpected: the signal was never ours; we were merely borrowing it. I don't wish to get into the ethics of bandwidth surfing here. Just note that I always vaguely intended to do something about the situation, but when the computer automatically seeks it out and hops on, it's difficult to feel a terrible amount of agency about the process.

At any rate, internet withdrawal symptoms set in about an hour after the discovery. For the first couple of days, I loitered with my laptop in front of the condo across the street, nonchalantly picking up bandwidth crumbs. Then I figured there had to be an errant signal somewhere within my large, newly-overpriced apartment, and set out like a surveyor, methodically walking the perimeter, laptop in hand. A spot in the dining room offered brief solace, but it was fickle, plunging from 90 to 8 percent in seconds. I devolved quickly from supplicating to superstitious: initial discoveries that the signal improved when the machine was held up and against the wall, touching a metal picture frame, led, by the end of the evening, to my standing on tiptoes on one foot, head up high, chin out, and one arm and leg outstretched. The discovery of the relative stability of the bathroom was a godsend.

Obviously, it was a situation that would drive even the most (*cough*) frugal of us to just pony up and pay for goddamn broadband, right?

Readers, I tried.

It's not so easy to get unbundled internet these days. I don't have cable (not much point, without a TV), and I don't have or want a landline. And I already have crappy wireless that I'm more or less resigned to, thanks. That limited my options.

My options were further limited by the unbelievably poor websites of the internet companies. Nineteen dollars a month for the first six months!, crowed one come-on. When I delved into the fine print -- really, just to determine whether it applied to so-called "naked DSL," honest -- I found these puzzlers: "rate applies for the first three months only," and "offer expires July 1, 2008." Yeah, I could try to reconcile all that. Or I could, y'know. Move on.

The next site wanted me to enter my service address. Fair enough. It then came back and informed me that the post office had standardized my address and could I please enter that? Er...did that just mean common-sense abbreviations and no punctuation? It did not. I stared at the instructions, dumbfounded: you really want me to sit here and guess how you would like my address mangled?

And that brought us to Verizon. First: address. Fine. Ten-minute wait. Ok. Then: which products are you interested in? And my selection brought us back to: which products are you interested in? Oh dear.

I tried again from work. Same deal, and each attempt required me to go back to square one: enter your address. Never mindful of the maxim about how the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results, I eventually got past the screen through sheer bloody-minded repetition (and waiting). That brought us to the shopping cart, which I took to be a good sign. A pop-up arrived: would I like a jacks package, for an additional $129? I would not, and adjusted my selection thusly. Curiously, there were about six different buttons to click that all said "update cart." I tried one; the popup disappeared; I pressed "purchase"; the popup came back, flogging jacks again. I tried each "update cart" button in turn: no luck. In desperation, I refreshed the screen. Yep, you guessed it: Enter address.

I tried periodically throughout the day, whenever it seemed like there wasn't about to be a coup in one of the regions of my responsibility. In all, I think I entered my address...and waited...about a dozen times. Finally -- I don't know how, I don't know why -- the site accepted that I did not want a jacks package (perhaps they're merely required to ask a dozen times?). Triumphantly, I was about to complete the transaction, when I noticed that Verizon had populated the "service address" field with "Apartment 508." What? No, no, no: we're not apartment 508. Desperately, I tried to hit "back" just enough to find where I could edit the field. And ended up with? All together now: Enter address.

Of course, I tried to redo it. And, of course, I ended up back at the first endless loop: what products are you interested in?

At this point, I know what you're thinking: why didn't I just call? Well, for starters, I hate calling in situations like these. I hate dealing with a scripted phonebot person who hates their job, hates you, and is forced to try to sell you cable and a jacks package. But I really wanted internet.

As it turns out, Verizon goes the "phonebot person" route one better by supplying just the bot, no person. It reeled off an oddly erroneous version of the work phone number I was calling from, and asked if I wanted internet on it.

"No," I said.

"Ok," it said -- insolently, I swear -- "what number are you calling about?"

"No number," I said hesitantly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that. What number are you calling about?"

"No...?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that. What number are you calling about?"

"None?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that. What number are you calling about?"

[E fumes silently and says nothing]

"If you do not have a landline, please say 'I do not have a number'"

[E repeats phrase, opting to test whether the addition of one common, choice expletive affects the voice recognition. Amusingly, it does not.]

Ok, I ask you: who designed this? What freakin' sadist decided that instructions should only be given after the question, and only if the person doesn't answer? Was there some sort of all-hands memo issued to the carbon-Americans after the machines took over everything, that I missed because I was overseas?

Anyway, it didn't end there. After going through a few more voice prompts, giving my address, and waiting ten minutes, the system determined that I didn't have a landline and it therefore couldn't help me, directed me to sign up online, and hung up on me. And yes, I did try the website again. I got as far as the jacks loop.

Fine, I decided. There must be a local office. Yellowpages.com yielded a handful: the first, defunct. The second, temporarily disconnected. The third, a voicebot system that swiftly channeled me to the national number that had guided me to the nonfunctional website before hanging up on me.

"Enough!" I yelled at the phone. "Keep your precious DSL! I'm not going to beg you to take my business!"

But I really wanted internet.

So I called plain 'ol local Verizon as if I were trying to get phone service. And then, on a hunch (it certainly wasn't listed as one of the options), I resolutely hit "0" every time I heard the 'bot open its digitized mouth. That eventually -- heck, much more quickly than I would've imagined -- got me to a live operator who even sounded a bit curious to see who still had a rotary-dial phone.

And then I went all Mumbai on her derriere.

No, seriously: this is part of why I hate ordering stuff over the phone. Though it may be hard to believe, I'm reticent, and even polite, in person, and easily turned away from my goals by...mm, just about anything, actually.

But I really wanted internet.

"Ma'am, you'll have to call our nat ---"

"-- No."

"Ma'am, I can't --"

"-- Uh-uh, I think you can."

"Ma'am, this isn't --"

"Try. Just try."

I acquiesced, reluctantly, to being transferred. We went through the whole "address?" loop once again, for old times' sake. (I bit my tongue as he explained, "we just need to check whether service is available in your area." I did not rejoin with "Why? Do you think something's happened since the last twenty-four times I checked?")

"That'll be $35/mo."

"The website said $19.99."

"That was for Verizon voice customers."

"Website didn't specify that."

"Well, it was a web-only deal, in any case."

"My inability to order on your website was not my fault."

"Ok! Ok, ok."

I hung up, half appalled and half pleased with myself that I seemed to have engaged in bargaining for something I tend to view as a public utility. I was pretty sure the modem wouldn't arrive -- I thought about leaving a note for apartment 508 -- but it did. I was expecting trouble with installation, but there wasn't. In fact, my "service-ready" date isn't until tomorrow, but the second the little green light stopped blinking, I hopped on and set everything up, and, so far, so good. Mind you, I have no idea how much I'm actually paying for the service, and the speed is somewhat slower than our borrowed service (but a good deal faster than our allegedly high-speed DSL in India; "fraudband," the cognoscenti called it).

So: in a gesture of good faith and appreciation, we will not conclude with a neat little summary about how much Verizon (still) sucks.

Yet.