The highlight of our weekend: Dealing with Cox

Not.

Okay, so this has nothing to do with the garden or the pool or cooking, but it does have something to do with our attempts at spending out time more enjoyably, so let me tell you about our fun experience with Cox this weekend.

We decided that we were going to cancel cable. Eric drove to work at the end of last week (versus taking the bus as he usually does) and stopped by Cox to take care of it. He came home that night and delivered the news: we were officially Cable-less. Good riddance.

But we weren't! The channels still came in - some fuzzy, some perfectly clear! Okay, yes, this defeats the goal we were trying to accomplish (spend our evenings more thoughtfully! learn German! read! whatever!) but hey, if we're paying like $75 less and still getting basically the same service? Awesome!

And then the next day when Eric was working from home,  both the internet service AND the TV signal went completely out.

He called Cox. He was told "Your modem is too old!" to which he replied, "And that caused my TV service to go away?" He then spoke to someone else a bit more competent...

Turns out they had completely canceled our service. Not downgraded - CANCELED. Brilliant.

So they immediately sent someone out to our house to hook it back up manually. This person worked their magic outside without ever knocking on our door or anything. When we saw him drive away, we checked the TV and indeed, service had been restored. (Minus cable.)

BUT.

Upon opening our web browsers, the Cox splash screen wouldn't allow us to get onto the internet! And then up came a window explaining why.

Our modem was too old.

Gahhh!!!!

Okay, so the modem worked this morning...but after you incorrectly canceled our service and then had to reconnect it, now it's no longer sufficient?

We called the company again, but of course no one at Cox could assist us at this point. After being transfered to one too many unhelpful customer service reps, Eric was fuming and I swear he would've marched straight out to Cox to give someone a piece of his mind if it wasn't all the way out in Herndon and a Friday night. He printed out the list from their website of acceptable modems and the next day, went to the store and bought one of them.

So we connect the modem. It didn't work right away. I call Cox.

I am told that this particular modem is also "old" and while they will support it if you have problems, it is not one of their preferred modems and therefore the speed of our internet may be slower than if we had a different modem.

Are you %^&*ing kidding me?!?!?

After reading off the serial numbers on the back of the new modem, we were finally connected - but by this time, a giant welt had formed on my forehead from banging my head on the desk. (Okay, not really - but this could be true.)

Grrr.