And the winner is...

It was one day while Walt was still in Boston when I picked up the telephone to call my mother and discovered there was no dial tone.

I believe I mentioned that fact here at the time.

It was late in the day, too late to call AT&T but I tried to file a complaint on their web site. I was able to leave a text message that our phone line was out (a message that was never answered), but when I tried to leave a detailed report, it would not recognize Walt's SS number or my SS number as valid, and so I was stymied.

The next day was Betty's funeral and I knew I wouldn't be home to meet a repair person, so I didn't bother following through on it then. The day after, Friday, was also a problem with timing and then there was the weekend. I knew Walt would be home on Monday, so I decided to just let people who might want to call me know I had no land line and let it go at that.

In truth, it was kind of nice knowing that nobody could call in. I could leave the house and leave the dogs in the yard and not worry about hearing a nasty voice message from Mr. McCoy if they barked.

I meant to call AT&T on Monday, but forgot and then Walt's flight was canceled for technical problems and so he didn't actually fly in until Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he got on the phone repair business (I missed him! Nice to have him home to do that for me!) and filed a complaint. They gave him a time when the repair person would be out.

We waited all afternooin and nobody showed up. Obviously they couldn't call us, because the phone is out!

Finally Walt checked the web site and learned that they had been unable to come and we would get "the next available appointment," the time of which was unspecified.

He finally learned that they would be out today, some time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

I have been keeping AT&T updates (which my friend John Fitzgerald points out is an oxymoron) on Faceboook and when I said that they would be here today and asked "guess what time I think they will finally show up") (my guess--5 p.m.), I had a slew of wonderful responses:

Pat Doyle: 4:55
Lyndsay Schaeffer Korbylo: 5:22, just after you've given up and gone out for dinner.
Ronald Hall: I'm thinking the middle of next week some time..... just sayin'
Sally Pebler Hannan: Either 7:30am or 5:30pm
(clearly she was delusional...arrive EARLY?)
Jennifer Pelot Rysewyk: Day after never?
Robin Hellgren: 5:01
Marte Brengle and David Gerrold: Tuesday

We sat here, dutifully, all day today. Walt went out a couple of times, taking his cell phone with him so that if someone arrived, I could call and he could hurry home. At 5:15, he called AT&T and was told that they were "still working in the area" and would be here eventually. Now...this is Davis. We are a town of 60,000 people. We aren't Sacramento. It has taken them three days and they still are "working in the area"? If that were true, there would be big stories in the newspaper about a big telephone outage, because we always read about piddly stuff like this in the paper.

Finally after 6, Walt got a call to say they had determined (without coming out here) that the problem was in the main cable--this took them 3 days to discover....NCIS's Abby and McGee or Criminal Minds' Garcia could have figure it out in seconds.

Anyway, now that they have identified the problem, they know that it is going to involve more major repairs, like digging up the street (which they did just a few months ago when the cable went out!)

The latest prediction for when we will have service restored is....

Tuesday.

Prizes to Marte and David (not to be awarded until I actually have a dial tone on this phone on Tuesday, of course!)