1-800-COMCAST

Alright, so have you ever tried calling someone when all you have are letters, not numbers? Especially calling from a Blackberry or some other wireless device that does not have a numeric keypad like a phone.

I have one thing to say about COMCAST. They are idiots. I am sitting here because I have no fancy schmancy digital voice service. No phone. No land line. My phone service is not working for the second time in 3 days. Why isn't it working? Are you ready for this? Apparently, you cannot have a cordless phone with an answering machine on AND have voice mail. Well, of course!! But it would have been nice if someone had informed us of this BEFORE we set up voicemail.

THE HOOK:
It all started with an automated phone call from Comcast informing us our phone service would expire by the end of April, and unless we selected a new phone service provider, we would no longer have phone service. Fortunately for us..COMCAST just happened to be having a special 1 year deal on a digital voice package including digital cable and high speed Internet! Who could resist! Certainly not my husband....so 2 weeks ago the Cable Guy came to our house and installed a new digital cable box, a new modem, and digital voice phone service. Voila!

I came home to find a pile of magazines with no home..because we now have a digital cable box and remote the size of Montana......a crumpled diploma...a picture frame fell onto it when the Cable Guy moved the entertainent center to access the cable outlet...and a packet of reading material for my pleasure.

"Here, you can read that and figure all this stuff out."

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:
So for two days weird things happened. The phone would ring a couple times then stop. I noticed people had called (we have caller ID) but noone left messages. The remote was a mass of buttons with serious lag time and WAY too many channels to flip through. Why are those magazines sitting on that chair? How did my diploma get wrinkled??

"Hey, did you get my messages? I called you twice?"
"No, I only got your cell phone message..."
"Well, your answering machine isn't working...I got some automated recording."
Two days of this and my husband says, "I think there's something wrong with our answering machine."
"Super."
"Hey did you ever read that stuff from Comcast?" Who has time for that.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE:
So not one, not two, but three booklets later, I discover we have digital voice mail....with mailboxes, which went into effect when the Cable Guy left...and now I need to set everything up in order to retrieve who knows how many messages! 10 missed messages over three days to be exact. We must now check our voicemail whether we think we have messages or not. There is no longer a blinking light. 5 pages of instructions and specialized settings for this and for that. Are you kidding me? Our voicemail picks up after 4 rings. I can't even get my ass off the couch in time to get to the phone. Whatever.

So I had some time to kill and decided to go back to the DIGITAL VOICE MANUEL. Hey! I can set the voicemail to pick up after 6 rings! Sweet!

THE FUN BEGINS:

I arrived home from work 2 days ago to no phone service. Nada. Dead. I unplugged stuff, I replugged stuff. I finally relented and tried to call 1-800 COMCAST. Where is the number??? Are you kidding me? Not a real phone number anwhere. I had to use my cell phone because I had no phone service, remember? The only problem was, my phone is set up like a keyboard, and not a phone pad. 1-800 COMCAST from a Motorola Q is WAY different than 1-800 COMCAST from a phone. Swell. Give me th #*&$*&^# phone.

THE LINE:

Of course it took 10 minutes to reach a real person...who apparently saw nothing wrong with the fact that nowhere in any of Comcast's literature do they have an actual phone number with NUMBERS INSTEAD OF LETTERS! "Did you reset the modem?" She asked.
"I have no idea what you are talking about!"
Whereas she proceeded to describe my modem to me....and then told me I would need to find a paperclip or some other device with a small, sharp, pointy end to insert into the notch for 5 seconds. Are you kidding me? I couldn't make this stuff up.

Okay, so I reset the modem, as she continues to talk to me like I am 2 . "Okay, I am going to call your phone." Nothing rings. "It should be working. I don't know why it isn't. Everything looks like it's working form here."
"Clearly it is not working. My phone is dead."
"Would you like me to send a technician out to your house?"
"Well, sure..that would be SWELL. Is there a number I can call in case my phone service comes back before tomorrow afternoon?"
"1-800 COMCAST."
"No, I mean a Real NUMBER. Not letters...numbers!"
"Oh......wait a minute...let me see....." She did not have it in front of her. I swear she was looking at a phone to try to figure out what COMCAST was on real numbers.

THE SINKER:
So The phone service came back on its own. The digital cable was not working in the morning...another call to 1-800 COMCAST....the technician came out to the house and told us everything was fine, except the answering machine was most likely conflicting with voicemail and we would...you guessed it...have to call 1-800 COMCAST to cancel voicemail if we wanted to use our own answering machine.
Are you kidding me? I have no time for that!

So like a dodo, I didn't call. Now, here I sit, with a dead phone again. I have unplugged and replugged everything back in....except for the answering machine. I have used my trusty paperclip to reset the modem. But I refuse to call 1-800 COMCAST. On principal. I would rather spend my time writing and posting then waiting for some half-assed customer service rep to tell me there is nothing wrong with my phone line.
So call me on my cell.