The Chronicles Of Jessica

I feel we've spent so much of our life force energy dealing with Comcast over the last week, we may never be the same. It's probably the equivalent of smoking a carton of cigarettes, or having pounds of red meat loitering in your bowels.

The cable went out last Wednesday, but not just the cable: the cable, the internet and the telephone, which are all tied together in what they charmingly call the "Triple Play Package". At first we thought it was my fault, because we have one of those switches that turns off all the power to the room and I accidentally flipped that and left it off all day and then when we got home that night everything was dead. They were supposed to come Thursday between 4 and 7 and Paul got off work to meet them, and they didn't show. They were supposed to come Sunday between 4 and 7 (and we nearly killed ourselves driving home from New Jersey in a frickin' blizzard to get there in time) and they didn't show. So Paul got on the phone last night, and wept and pleaded, and offered some cash and our first-born child, and they promised they would be there by ten a.m. this morning, and the guy finally showed up at 9:57. Stupidly, I didn't get up in time to take a shower because I realized that the minute I got in the shower, he would show up and ring the bell and then leave because he'd assume we weren't home. That's how it works, right? It's the same principle of the universe that makes your food come to the table when you go to the bathroom at a restaurant. In fact I tried to get this principle working for me by waiting for the guy without pants on, you know, because of course the repairman shows up when you have no pants on. Yeah, it didn't work.

It turned out they had disconnected the cable themselves last week when our downstairs neighbors moved out. Brilliant. Now I have to spend the day as an oily-haired crone because they don't know the diff between the basement and the first floor. There's not a balance credit big enough to appease me for that, Crapcast!

In other genius customer-service news, Paul and I rented a car to go see his family in New Jersey, which was so much fun, and when I returned the car, the guy at Thrifty charged my credit card for the rental car reservation of one Jake Dunton, of Indiannapolis, Indiana. He apparently rented a car there in 2004. How they could make this mistake, I do not know, for I don't look like a Jake, and it is 2007. Of course now they have taken their substantial car rental fee TWICE and I'm sure this will be no problem at all to clear up. And even if it is, what care I for that?! I mean, I have more disposable income than Oprah! In fact, I should start my own school in Africa, right next door to hers, and we can coordinate mosaic tiles and landscaping choices.

We didn't really watch the Academy Awards last night, although Paul was able to get the channel with an antenna we found in a box under the dining room table (why, where do you keep your antennaes?) Paul wanted to see Al Gore get his Oscar, and I kind of did too, but I have this love/hate thing with award shows. I love seeing everyone all dressed up and everything, but it's just such a huge collective self-congratulatory pat on the back, it kind of puts me off sometimes. And I don't like having to stare at Halle Berry every year, who makes me feel fat, and all the famous actors, who make me feel unsuccessful. I always have this vague feeling that if I could get one of those gigs as a seat-filler, and score a chair next to Martin Scorcese, then maybe I could get something going. But with my luck I'd probably get stuck in the balcony between Carrot Top and the guy who did the sound editing for Saw III.