Back in Business - Part Two

 So, I called VIASAT the next day.  I had a particularly hard time getting through to a human because the machine couldn't find my account.  As I explained to the human when I finally did get through, the reason the machine couldn't find my account was because I didn't have an account with VIASAT, I had an account with DISH.  Even after I explained the whole thing to him, he still insisted that I should be calling DISH instead of VIASAT, while I kept insisting that I had called DISH, and they told me that I needed to call VIASAT.  To his credit, the guy offered to set up a conference call between him, myself, and somebody from DISH, which he did. 

 For some reason, the DISH lady got the impression that I had a problem with my TV service, which is also carried by DISH, although it comes through a different dish from a different satellite.  It took a while for me to convince her that my problem was with my internet service, while the VIASAT guy waited patiently at his end.  Then he spoke to her in her native tongue and explained the situation from his perspective.  Then she put us both on hold while she tried to find somebody who knew what was going on.  She came back in a few minutes and explained that DISH had been phasing out their internet service for some time, and now they are no longer servicing their old VIASAT equipment.  The only way to resolve this was for me to cancel my DISH internet service and sign up with VIASAT, which I did.  After spending a solid hour on the phone talking to people who probably didn't understand my accent any better than I understood theirs, I was totally exhausted, and I ain't over it yet.  I am hoping that writing about it will bring me some closure.

A few days later, VIASAT sent a guy up all the way from Houghton Lake, some hundred miles south of here, to install my internet service.  He didn't have to change the dish on the roof because it was already VIASAT equipment, but he wondered why my broken modem had the DISH logo on it.  Apparently no one had explained the situation to him, and he thought he had been sent up here on a simple repair call.  The good news is that he spoke fluent Michigan English, so it didn't take long for me to bring him up to speed, and he installed my VIASAT service forthwith.  

Funny thing, before I had been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century, I never missed being on the internet, but now I go into withdrawal when I lose it.  Rural electrification didn't hit Cheboygan County until the about 1950, and I understand that nobody missed having it before then.  Now it's a genuine emergency when the power goes out.  I suppose, though, people in olden days were just as dependent on whatever they had at the time.  I am told my grandfather worked his ten-acre farm with a big old draft horse for 20 years.  When the horse finally died, Grandpa replaced him with a tractor instead of getting another horse.  He said that the death of the horse caused him so much grief that he didn't want to experience anything like that again in his lifetime.