Thursday December 2nd 2010 – How Rude!

Today we were blessed by the coming of The Big Ugly’s Specialist Engineer. He was a short, snappy jobs-worth with no discernable merits.

Like the previous, Non-Specialist Engineer, this fellow had his trusted Spook-ometer handy, but unfortunately hadn’t packed any of the jolliness.

Firstly he stepped on Bernard and called him a ‘meddling moggie’. Please! Bernard is quite possibly the most beautiful Chocolate Point Siamese the world has ever seen. I know that sometimes his help is anything but helpful, but he’s far too distinguished to ever be anything as vulgar as meddling. Ouch! Get off his tail you clumsy time waster! If you were just a little bit smaller Bernard would have tossed you in the air like a lifeless shrew.

Secondly, once the Spook-ometer is plugged in, he tells me that there isn’t actually an issue as everything is working correctly. He puts it like this, he tells me, ’because he doesn’t want to blind me with science’. Trust me, this spark couldn’t light a hydrogen balloon with a blow torch. I think I’ll be OK.

‘It’s reading 8 Mbps on my equipment, so there’s no issue’, he says, proudly re-inventing the wheel.

‘Well, yes, I really do think that there is an issue. I mean it’s not working is it? We can’t connect to the internet. It’s not working yet again. After only a few weeks of working, it’s now stopped working and continued to not work for 10 days.’ I say, forcing myself to stay calm through manic jaw grinding.

‘No, no, no, I mean you can’t actually connect to the internet, but that’s not my area,’ he responds blandly.

I don’t say anything, but I’m actually worried that I might bite through to my brain in fury.

‘The thing is’, he continues, pointing at the router, ‘I don’t get involved in that bit.’

I can’t help it, but I am now definitely more shouting that speaking, ‘So, are you saying that as a Big Ugly Specialist Engineer, (for whom I have waited in all afternoon), that you’ve come into my house to tell me what I already know? Are you saying that we have connection, but no throughput?’

‘Oh, let’s not try and get technical luv.’ He yawns.

‘Waa-waa-waa...’ starts building on the baby monitor.

‘What’s that?’ he booms. ‘Have you got ducks?’

Ducks? I want to scream ‘Out! Get of my house you slippery bit of tripe. Out!’ Of course I don’t and the innate, ‘thank you for having me’ little girl reflex kicks in. ‘Thank you for your time’, I say, ushering him out politely.