Mark Twain

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Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Epic Fail

So all my frantic ice making preparations for Hurricane Sandy were an epic fail for keeping the power on along the east coast.  You thought I was joking about that, but usually when I prepare for something, it doesn't happen.  To everyone in the path of Sandy ... sorry.  I did my best.

We lost power for about 24 hours.

That wasn't the only epic fail we experienced.  We lost our land line phone service.

But, hey, I have a cell phone, right?  hmmm ... well sort of.

I have this simple cell phone.  It cost $20 for the unit.  The service was the cheapest I could find - $20 every 3 months through Virgin Mobile.   Early days with this plan (2009) I used it so little I had accumulated about $90 is unused minutes.  I was and continue to be - a low user of cell phones.

But ..

Mom got sick a few times prior to 2011, and then she was sick pretty much all of 2011!  I used that $90 quick.

Now why would I tell you this story?

Well here is the real epic fail of my phone service.

  • My house is a dead zone for my cell phone.  Ha!  No problem, since I have a land line in the house.
  • The power goes out. No lights.
  • My land lines go dead.  No phone.  No problem.  I can use my cell phone to report the outages.
  • Oh, that is right.  I need to stand outside to make a call.
  • Lest we forget there is a mega hurricane on the eastern seaboard.  No matter.  I stand on the side walk and make the call. (Thinking Rambo thoughts - Sandy doesn't scare me!)
  • My land line phone company, AT&T, wants to do some "problem solving maneuvers" while I am on the line before they schedule a technician to visit the property. Maybe this can be fixed quickly. (Bets anyone if this will be quick or not?)
  • Remember - if I go into the house with my cell phone to make "the maneuvers," my call will be dropped!  Can't do that.
  • Oh wait.  I am not alone! My husband can do the maneuvers, so I yell the phone company instructions to him from the sidewalk (where I am standing in the rain.)
  • ahh ... it is very dark in the house.   We have 5 telephones on 3 floors.  He must stumble his way around the house using a flash light and his poor eye sight to do my bidding.  
  • Wet. I am very wet.
  • Oh, and before you say my husband should use the cell phone and I should disconnect the land line phones - you need to know he doesn't use cell phones.  It is a thing with him.  
  • I must admit at that point standing in the rain, I thought he might be on to something!! :-)

So the "maneuvers" didn't work.  We are still without land line service.  But we still have our trusty $20 cell phone - which is soon to be history.

I think I will maneuver this little Virgin Mobile phone with its stinko network into the trash and get myself a "big girl" phone ...  I think an iPhone is looking pretty sweet right now!

Two epic fails in 24 hours is quite enough for me.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We aren't much for cell phones either...we've had the same one for over ten years now, the service costs us $11 and change a month. We must have hundreds of dollars in reserve by now.

Linda said...

Ah, well my preparations did work - not even a flicker on our lights. I can't believe our luck when I look at what happened in NYC and NJ - both not all that far. Also there was loss of electric service so many places - amazing that we have ours. (knock on wood!). Glad you are all well, those iphones are sweet!

happyone said...

I can just picture that!!! : )
We don't even have a land line anymore and our cell phones are tracfones which we pay for minutes before we use them. Really cheap.

Carolyn said...

Glad that you got your power back. Ours only flickered, but many near us lost theirs for hours. (And as Linda said, the devastation in NJ and NY are not that far away from our corner of PA.)
Cell phones are a necessity with my young adult children who both live out of the area now. Good to call and not worry about tolls..and they prefer texts for short messages especially during their work/school days.

Dr. Kathy McCoy said...

I'm so glad you weathered the hurricane so well, but what an experience! Yes, I think these days a reliable cell phone is a necessity. I've resisted getting one of the iPhones, though my husband has one and loves it, but I think the time is coming to trade in my little old minimal model for something a bit more reliable. I hope you have full power, land line and all, back very soon!

cmm said...

So glad to hear that you are all fine. I got an iPhone this year and I don't know how I lived without it. You will love it once you get it.
Take care
Catherine

Lynne said...

A few days late answering comments . . . Do you have your iPhone yet? You go girl . . . You deserve it! Happy you are safe! How about power and land line? Everything working again?

Vee said...

Oh the things we go through! You had me grinning though as I saw you all wet standing out in a hurricane yelling directions. We gave up our landline. It may have been a mistake, but since we had a digital service that didn't always work well either. I hope that you get your big girl phone and enjoy it. You certainly deserve it! Glad that you fared pretty well through the big storm.