Once Upon a Time (Part 4.5)

And then, not even two hours after he posted the previous part regarding the infuriating nature of the Link of Sudden, its lackeys and dick-filled bag-eating nature, who should phone the scribe at his castle but the Link of Sudden itself. Actually, it was an automated message alerting the scribe to an impending and heretofore unexpected service appointment at his castle, scheduled, it said, for tomorrow morning between 8 and noon.

Curious timing, to be sure. But the scribe suspects this may just be coincidence, as the link of sudden does not know him by his scribe name on this blog. Or maybe they just did the "cranky guy in West Virginia who keeps calling and pointing out how we don't call him back and whose complaint seems remarkably similar to this blogger's" math.

Nahh. I can't be the only one.

Until tomorrow, then...

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Once Upon a Time... (Part 4)

The following day, with NO EFFING CALLS RECEIVED FROM ANYONE, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden back and nicely asked to speak to the specific supervisor who had promised to call the day before. The underling said she was not in the office. Furthermore, the underling said that the reason the supervisor had not called was because the local tech supervisor had promised to phone the scribe to explain exactly why he couldn’t have the web of the whole wide world in his castle. The scribe asked to speak to a different supervisor, because mounting evidence suggested that he would never receive any such phone call. The underling told him none were available. The scribe told the underling that he felt as though he were being given the runaround, but would wait to hear what the technical supervisor had to say in his much anticipated phone call.

The scribe got dressed and prepared himself for a morning of using the web of the whole wide world at the place where they hide the books. But before he could even leave the house, he saw through the castle’s kitchen window a large Link of Sudden truck parked in his driveway. He went out and this was when he met the technical supervisor who had promised to phone. The man was very nice and gently broke the news that while all of the scribe’s neighbors seemed to have internet service, the scribe’s castle could not. At least, not without a great deal of work and expense on the part of the Link of Sudden. The most direct route would be to install a series of cable poles and rewire the whole valley from their line at the nearest major road. That would be woefully expensive, though the Link of Sudden might eventually undertake it should they feel like they would get enough customers along the route of the lines. The other option would be to somehow tie in to the connection shared by the scribe’s two nearest neighbors. Currently, that receptacle only had two connectors in it which were used by his two neighbors. It would be expensive to upgrade that box as well as to bury cable up the hill to connect to the scribe’s castle, plus there was the hassle of asking the neighbors if this was okay with them. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope on it. In fact, he noted, the scribe should probably look into other internet options because there was no guarantee the cost/benefit analysis for either of the aforementioned options would come out in his favor. But, the man said, he would turn in his survey findings to his boss, his boss would run the c/b/a and would call me back, probably some time early the following week.

The scribe, upon hearing this news, decided that the likelihood of him gaining the web of the whole wide world from the Link of Sudden was pretty low. He didn’t feel like the technical supervisor was jerking him around, but was on the level. He would explore other avenues. But he also wasn’t willing to give up entirely on Suddenlink, especially when the supervisor had said there was still a chance.

In order to get some web of the whole wide world into the house, he put in a call to a telephony guild called Frontier. He’d actually called them a week previous and had been told that they could give him service, though the speeds they offered were pale by comparison to those he had received with the Link of Sudden in Borderland. Still, they would at least get him SOME service. The new lackey on Frontier’s line, however, could find no record of his previous call, nor an address for his castle at all. The lackey suggested that if the scribe were to visit one of his neighbors and inquire of them their telephone number, he could locate the castle more readily. So the scribe, quite grumpy, walked down the hill to one of the two nearest castles and knocked on the door of that owned by the neighbor he had not yet met. Its resident, Martha, was a nice older lady who not only gave the scribe her phone number and address, but regaled him with tales of how fast her connection was to the web of the whole wide world. Couldn’t talk enough about its blazing fast speeds and how she had been told her house was the last one on the line from Link of Sudden’s local node and that she was pretty sure she’d been told that the scribe’s house could not have it.

Once the scribe returned to his castle and phoned the next Frontier lackey, they were able to pinpoint his location. Again, he was told he could have 4 megabytes per second in his speed on the web of the whole wide world, a far cry less than the blazing 15 mps promised by the Link of Sudden. However, when the Frontier installation lackey came out two days afterward, he could barely summon half an mps let alone a full megabyte and that was directly at the phone connection to the castle. The phone jacks within the castle would not even register. Turns out, the castle is at the very tip end of a line running from Tri-Metro Town B and is at 2200 feet from that access point, wherein Frontier recommends no more than 1800. Not only could the scribe not have 15,000 mps, not only could he not have 4 mps, he could not even have 1 mps and in order to get the half an mps within his home all other phone jacks in the place would have to be disconnected. The scribe told the Frontier lackey to begone, and to relay to his vile masters exactly how many bags of dicks they were invited to consume—which is to say one bag of dicks. But the lackey did suggest the scribe look into wifi hotspot devices for possible service. He did warn, however, that no one was giving away data for free these days.

Meanwhile, the promised days upon which the scribe was to have received a call regarding the cost/benefit analysis came and went with, of course, nary a call. At the end of that week, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden and inquired as to the result. They again said they did not know, but would put in a request that the scribe be given a call. The scribe pointed out, for probably the sixth time, that he had been given repeated promises of a call in the previous weeks and had never actually been received one outside for the calls for directions made by the first two failed installation guys. The Link of Sudden said they were very sorry.

Not willing to give up on what had become a quest, the scribe researched other options via the web of the whole wide world down at the place where they hide the books. Turned out, the Zon of Veri, the Great and Powerful Atat, and Sprint offered wireless hotspot cards that could potentially connect devices in his castle to the web of the whole wide world at speeds approaching high ones. However, they all wanted to charge a fair assload for the privilege, not to mention required a two year contract. And of the services, only Sprint offered unlimited data with their MIFI card. The other two charged around $10 per gigabyte. After speaking to Sprint, the scribe learned that their service, while unlimited in its data plan, did not have a reliable signal in the area of his castle. Plus, they would require the two year contract. They did, however, note that a sister organization, Virgin America, offered a pre-paid mifi card for $50 per month with unlimited data and no contract. Unfortunately, when the scribe researched the validity of this, he learned that it was a massive pile of horse shit. Virgin America DID offer a $50 per month mifi card that claimed it came with unlimited data. However, while the data itself was unlimited, your access to it in high speed form was limited to 2 gigs per month, at which point they cinched off the pipe to dialup speeds for the rest of the month, or until you paid them another $50. And for that Richard Branson may consume two bags of dicks.

The Great and Powerful Atat, which allegedly has some of the best connectivity in the Tri-Metro area, also offered a MIFI card for $50 per month, but they at least gave you 5 gigs for that money and for each additional gig you went beyond the initial 5 you would be charged $10. The scribe reasoned that if he had to pay for such service, at least this was metered and would not be cinched off. He popped by the Atat store and signed up. And it worked! It was pretty much blazing fast and for most things he did not notice much difference between the Link of Sudden and the Atat. However, streaming Flix of Net movies chewed through the data at an alarming rate. It was almost to the point that he was better off paying movie theater prices to watch movies through his PS3. And when it came to using the PS3 network to game online with his god son, forget it. While it would let him play games online, something about the Atat connection would not allow a direct connection with his godson. The scribe decided he would take the rest of the month to try out the service before making any further drastic decisions.

Meanwhile, life went on. Boxes continued to be unpacked and put away and their former castle in Borderland was finally placed on the market. The goodly wife began her commute to Asscrackton for her work while the scribe began to take on freelance scribing jobs once again. He also was able to resume his casting of pod for the "Tales of the Place Where They Hide The Books CAST." It hurt him deeply to know that uploading it was costing him moolah, but at least he wouldn't have to upload it exclusively at the Place Where They Hide the Books.

Over the following two weeks, calls were repeatedly placed to the Link of Sudden asking about the cost/benefit analysis results. They didn’t have them, but promised someone would phone. No one ever did. Finally, nearly three weeks after being promised he would receive a call regarding the cost/benefit analysis, the scribe called the Link of Sudden back to ask again and was told a new request for information would be put in to the local crew. The scribe again stressed that he would believe no promises of phone calls to come until one actually did, because he’d had ten of them already and none had EVER come to pass. Furthermore, he was quite put out at having paid for an entire month of service on an empty house with no one in it. He would like to disconnect his service. The phone lackey begged him not to, saying that he was grandfathered into a good pricing deal and should not allow it to lapse until he heard word officially on his connection. The scribe countered that he was getting a great deal on service he was not and could not receive, so what sense did it make to continue with it? The lackey begged again, and the scribe relented. And to help alleviate the scribe’s concerns about no future callbacks, the phone lackey gave the scribe an escalation number which he was to give to the next Link of Sudden lackey after he didn’t receive a call for a few days more. At least they were planning ahead, the scribe thought.

One week later, and still no calls, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden and gave them the number. The new phone lacked explained that his connectivity issue had been escalated to the construction phase. This did not mean, as she pointed out, that he would be receiving any service from them, but that the results of the survey were being considered and the cost/benefit analysis calculated. Furthermore, it was no surprise that he had received no call about any of it because once the issue had been escalated all further communication would be in writing. He should expect a letter at some point in the future.

“But how long do I have to wait?” he asked.

Oh, the letter could come today. Or it could come in weeks, or even months. You couldn’t tell with these things. Yes, once it was in construction’s hands, there was just no way to estimate when they would get around to it.

“But I was promised a call within four days of the survey,” the scribe said. “That was three weeks ago.”

Yes, we know. These things take time.

“But… but all of my neighbors have high speed internet through you. If they would just upgrade the equipment down the hill, I could have it, too. Maybe. I just want someone to call me and tell me whether or not that will even work. I’m willing to pay for burying the cable up the hill if you guys will just upgrade the box to fit another plug!”

Yes, we know. You’ll receive a letter. These things take time.

Every fiber in the scribe's being wanted to tell the lackey the exact number of bags of dicks that he required the link of sudden to consume--which is to say ALL of the bags of dicks. But, instead, the scribe again noted that he was still currently paying for service on an empty house and was unwilling to continue do so while waiting indefinitely for a letter to arrive from them. He had no more faith in their ability to write letters than he did in their ability to make a phone call. In fact, he wanted reimbursed for all of his time the Link of Sudden had wasted in this matter, which had been stretching on a full 40 days previous. He was through listening to lackeys beg him to keep his service. He wanted disconnected. The phone lackey reluctantly agreed, saying that a Link of Sudden rep could come by to pick up their equipment, but would only pick it up from the castle it had been assigned to.

"That will not be possible," the scribe said, noting that he now lived in a completely different town. The lackey suggested he could drop it off at one of their local guilds, but only listed the guilds in Borderland and Asscrackton as possibilities. No, the scribe said, he was only willing to mail it to them.

And that, dear and patient readers, was how the matter was left.

(TO BE CONCLUDED...)

Once Upon a Time... (Part 3)

After recovering from having his own jaw slam into his junk from the shock of having heard there was no job waiting for his wife in the town in which they’d just agreed to purchase a castle, the scribe could barely come up with words to express his shock and anger. Most of the words he was able to summon were variations and expansions upon the word “fuck”. Some of these he was able to keep locked in his brain for a time, but very quickly, as the gravity of the situation began to set in, they began to spew forth in such phrases as, “But we just bought a EFFing castle there!!!” What was not immediately apparent on that day in early February (nor has it become a whole lot more apparent to this day) was just what would cause Tuesday the Middle Manager to give the goodly wife the green light on purchasing a castle when there was no job for her to take at the Tri-Metro Immediate Healing Clinic. But in that moment, all the scribe could do was share and magnify the anger the goodly wife was feeling. Eventually, she suggested she should hang up and allow him time to calm down because she was at work and could not join him in ranting and screaming “fuck” at the top of her lungs no matter how much she might like to. So this she did.

Gradually, the details emerged of what the true plan had been from the standpoint of the Grand King. According to him, the first he had EVER heard about any move to Tri-Metro by Dr. Goodly Wife was during her phone call to him that morning. Beyond that, she learned that there HAD been an opening in Tri-Metro some months before, but that this position had been filled by another healer who was being moved down from a more northerly Immediate Healing Clinic to fill that void. The king would have been fine with Dr. Goodly Wife transferring to Tri-Metro, but he said no one had told him and so he and his staff filled the position from elsewhere. The king had no idea why Tuesday the Middle Manager would have thought anything otherwise, because Tuesday had been involved in the hiring of the healer to fill the position in Tri-Metro in the first place. (She would later claim she thought the healer was being hired for Asscrackton and that she was largely in the dark on most of those kinds of decisions, which conceivably might be true.) Whether she was high, stupid or just being a big bouncy “C” was not then nor today clear. What was clear, as the goodly wife pointed out to the Grand King, was that she was now in a very unfortunate situation of very nearly being the owner of two castles neither of which were in towns she would be employed in for much longer. While the king did not owe her a job in Tri-Metro, she had operated in good faith on information given to her by his middle managers and had proceeded with plans to move there. Surely there was something he could do to try and make the unfortunate situation less unfortunate.

The Grand King’s suggestion was to offer her an immediate position in Asscrackton. This was not something she wished to hear, for while Asscrackton was closer to Tri-Metro than Borderland, it was still a hefty commute and it was still a job in Asscrackton. No one wanted to work in Asscrackton. It was hellishly busy and full of surly employees, if rumors were to be trusted. But the Grand King said it would be no problem to set her up there, which would be closer to Tri-Metro, and she could have all the extra days at the Tri-Metro Immediate Healing Clinic that weren’t already spoken for. She could even have a nice raise which would combat the extra fuel expenses in getting there and maybe make the time spent in doing so worth it. And, if a position opened in Tri-Metro, it was hers and she could keep the raise. He would even put it in writing to her specifications. This sounded tolerable and even generous to the goodly wife. She later explained it to the scribe and while he was still fuming and aching in his junk, he did the math on the raise and agreed that it was in fact quite a tempting offer.

It took a few drafts to get the wording of the contract right, but eventually all parties agreed upon a set of terms and the deal was put into place. The goodly wife would start work in Asscrackton in mid-March. And, meanwhile, the closing date on the new castle had also been set for leap year day. That in mind, the scribe set about packing as much of their crap into boxes and hauling loads of it over to a storage facility in Tri-Metro in preparation for getting their old castle ready to be seen by potential buyers and to get as much of it in their new/old town. They even began speaking with the same moving company that had transported their possessions to borderland about hauling quite a bit of it back. The scribe and wife would pack and move their clothes and sundry books and crap, but the furniture and the kitchen could be moved by professionals.

At last leap day came, the papers were signed and the new castle was officially theirs. And to celebrate, and because it was the last day of the month and they didn’t want to pay another month’s storage, the two of them celebrated by hauling their crap from the storage unit to the new castle in the pouring rain.

The new castle was pretty great, albeit with a few things that needed updating in a big way. The pinstripe wallpaper in the guest bathroom, for instance, had to go, as did some of the window treatments that prevented the back door from opening properly and which infuriated the scribe, for if there’s one thing he hates its design at the expense of utility. But beyond those minor issues and some painting, the place was absolutely great. The two set about remedying the perceived flaws over the course of the following days.

In preparation for the move, the scribe had already contacted essential utilities to make certain that he and the goodly wife would be without them for as little time as possible. Not electricity and water, mind you, but the Network of Dish and the Link of Sudden for all their televisual and web of the whole wide world needs. The two companies even scheduled time to come out and do the installation on the same day.

The Network of Dish was the easiest of these installations, and happened in the afternoon. It was the Link of Sudden installation that had problems in the morning. The Link installation guy inspected the castle to find where its cable was located. Some more inspection then commenced as well as telephone device calls to Link of Sudden HQ and walks around the property. Eventually, the installation tech returned to the scribe’s presence and announced that despite the fact that the castle was wired for the Link of Sudden and had had service through them with the previous owners, the castle was now “unserviceable” for anything beyond basic cable. Apparently while the previous owners had used Link of Sudden for their television, they had not had high speed web of the whole wide world and consequently the connection from the castle into their system was over 300 feet away, which would not support web. The next nearest such node was in the yard of the scribe’s nearest neighbor, a mere 60 feet down the hill, but that particular box only contained two connection ports into which his two nearest neighbors were connected. The installation man said he was inexperienced and could not do such an installation, but perhaps someone with more knowledge than he could. He told the scribe that he would soon be called by such a tech to discuss what to do next.

After no such call was received within 24 hours, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden to inquire as to when he could expect it. The underling on the line told the scribe that no call should be expected for the castle had been declared “unserviceable” by the first tech who’d been out.
“No,” the scribe pointed out, “the castle was unserviceable by that guy. He said he was new and that the castle might be serviceable by someone more experienced. He said they would call me.”
The underling said she understood and that she would note this in the account and request that the local dispatcher give me a call, but as far as she could tell the castle truly was unserviceable and the scribe should probably give up. The scribe reiterated to her that he really REALLY wanted this connection to happen. The purchase of the castle was made partially BECAUSE it had the Link of Sudden. He was willing to pay fees if it meant someone who knew what they were doing could come out and have a look at the place. The underling again said she would note it and that the scribe would be given a call.

After no call was received within 24 hours, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden again to inquire. The new underling also said the castle was unserviceable which led the scribe to explain again the nature of this potentially incorrect claim and the lack of call backs. A little digging on the underling’s part and a note from the local dispatcher was discovered stating that the house actually was serviceable and that an installation could take place at my request. Nice of them to alert the scribe, no? The next available installation date, of course, was a week away and no argument would be brooked otherwise.

Because the scribe has his intelligent personal telephony device that is equipped with the web of the whole wide world and unlimited data, he is able to check his Mail of E. In order to get some of his bigger projects accomplished faster, though, he had to take his lap of top down to his former workplace at the place where they hide the books and use their wireless connection to the web of the whole wide world. He was therefore also able to hang out with his former coworkers and shoot the shit. The only former Rogue Patron he was able to see, though, was Mr. W. Perfect.

A week later, the next installation tech arrived, took one look at the wiring from road level and again announced it was unserviceable. The scribe was hardly surprised and said as much to the installer. The installer said that from what he could see there was no way to make the castle compliant with the needs of the Link of Sudden with its current setup. What was needed was to have the Link of Sudden send out a surveyor to assess the situation and make recommendations for how best to proceed. Perhaps, he supposed, the necessary cables could be connected to the power and phone pole directly behind the new castle, since they couldn’t be run from the street far beyond.

“Could you please tell me HOW I can convince them to do this?” the scribe asked. He explained that he had been phoning and phoning and begging for this very thing to happen but all anyone would say is that the house was unserviceable. Clearly, since every neighbor in spitting distance had the service, it was technologically possible to install. The intaller said it would be best to speak to someone in the Link of Sudden’s engineering department, preferably in Texas, as they could actually make things happen there. He said it wasn’t wise to call and yell as that tended to shut the underlings down and make them less cooperative.

So after the installer left, the scribe phoned the Link of Sudden and nicely asked them to speak to the engineering department, preferably in Texas. The underling on the phone did not seem to want to comply and began asking the scribe questions, which raised his blood pressure. And, after the scribe had described the issue, again and nicely, the underling said that her screen noted that the castle was unserviceable, but she could “put in a form” for the local tech supervisor to give him a call. The call could take up to 48 hours to be made, however. The scribe told her that this was unacceptable. He had been promised calls twice previously, but none had ever come. All communication with the company had been made due to his efforts alone. He did not trust that any promise of another call would be any more fruitful, so he asked to speak to a supervisor. When the supervisor came on the line, the scribe explained the whole situation again and mentioned the lack of calls and the seeming confusion on the part of their installers as to what could or needed to be done to make things work. The supervisor apologized that the scribe had not been called and assured him that she would personally put in a call to the local tech supervisor and make certain that he called. And if he couldn’t call then she, the phone supervisor, would call herself and explain the situation. The scribe, she said, could expect a call from someone before 5 p.m.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Once Upon a Time... (Part 2)

A year passed.

During that year, the scribe who still missed his former life in Tri-Metro, decided to embark upon a new project that would hearken back to the material he had written during his time at the place where they hide the books—a project that would again make use of his golden voice. Since his days in Tri-Metro, the scribe had been an ever-growing fan of a new and growing industry related to the Casting of Broad, but which was called the Casting of Pod. In this industry, no one had to join a town criers guild or find a criers station to cast, or ever play Rod Stewart again. Instead, one could “record” such cries from one’s own guest bedroom and make them available to the masses via the web of the whole wide world. It had become a daily ritual of the scribe to listen to the casts of such notable casters of pod as Saint Adam of the Carollas, among many others. Wishing to step into this new medium himself, the scribe bought some equipment and began adapting and recording some of the stories he’d written for Tales from the Place Where they Hide the Books. This new cast of pod he called the Tales from the Place Where they Hide the Bookscast. It soon had tens of listeners.

Meanwhile the goodly wife’s job in the Borderland Immediate Healing Clinic went fairly well during that time. In fact, the place was ridiculously busy, leading to many a late night as the healers had to stay and finish their charting on the many patients they’d seen that day. This led to many requests by the goodly wife that the place of healing hire other healers to lighten the load and decrease the late nights. It took months for this to happen, of course, with repeated promises that it would in the interim. And while it eventually did occur, it did not until the goodly wife had voiced another promise to seek employment elsewhere if the situation did not change. She had even located said employment in the form of a place of healing back in Tri-Metro. The scribe was actually overjoyed at this prospect, because it would mean a return to his favorite place. Then the goodly wife’s bosses listened to her promise and, perhaps because she was one of the more productive healers in their employ, they listened and hired help. It seemed the Tri-Metro return was not to be. In lamenting, this, however, the scribe at last was able to alert the goodly wife of his desire to one day return to Tri-Metro—which he thought she had known all along but which she claimed she did not. This in mind, though, when an opening occurred at the Tri-Metro Immediate Healing Clinic, the goodly wife let it be known to her middle-management that she wished to transfer into it.

One of the middle managers, let’s call her Tuesday (as in “See” You Next…), said that it would not be a problem to transfer. It would be a simple matter of scheduling the goodly wife to work in Tri-Metro and continue to do so afterward that. According to Tuesday, the position would not be open for at least three months, so it would take that long before the Goodly Wife could be transferred. This was all right, however, because a new castle would have to be found and the old one sold.

Soon enough, the pair began to travel to Tri-Metro to look at new castles. And because they loved their Borderland castle so much, they were very picky. There was no point in moving if they couldn’t have something at least approaching what they had in Borderland, which was just far enough outside of the city to feel remote and woodsy, yet still close enough to get high speed internet via the Link of Sudden. There were several castles in the land surrounding Tri-Metro that they liked well enough, and most fit their vision of what they wanted in a castle, but each of them had at least one major check against it. Either they were located unsettlingly close to rivers or to avalanche-prone hillsides, or they were so far out to make for an irritatingly long commute to town, or they had an enormous crack in their subterranean basement wall, etc. The other major problem with them all was that they were far enough away from town to not receive proper high speed internet access. All of them had the Net of Hughes, which everyone knows is just awful. In fact, if you check the Net of Hughes’ own site on the web of the whole wide world, they pretty much admit to sucking really really hard. How could the scribe watch his Netflix streaming on the Net of Hughes? How could the scribe play Little Big Planet with his Godson on the Net of Hughes? How could he cast his pod? He could not. And thus the scribe declared his desire to only purchase a castle that had proper high speed internet, preferably from the Link of Sudden.

Just when they thought they would have to settle for the castle with the crack in the basement and an experimental and untested MiFi card for internet, a new castle was located. This one was barely a mile from town, located on top of a hill in the back of a quiet neighborhood with gorgeous views of mountains and countryside and sunsets. There were two massive and gnarled, centuries-old oaks in front of it, casing atmospheric shadows over the property. And the land butted up against a stretch of land with a trail where dogs could be walked and exercise had. What was more, the castle was already equipped with the Link of Sudden. Glory be! The goodly wife and the scribe went immediately to see it and were astounded at what they found. The castle had been built around the same time as theirs in Borderland, so it had much the same feel, if not the same layout. It had loads of space for all their stuff, a nice kitchen, a very nice master bathroom, a huge basement and a heated and air-conditioned outbuilding that had once been used as a woodshop but could potentially be used as a scribing retreat, and an enormous walk in closet that could easily be transformed into a studio for his golden voice and the casting of pods. Granted, there wasn’t as much property as with the Borderland castle, but what it had was all useable, not terribly steep and had a front yard that was not a right bastard to mow. This was not to say there weren’t some issues to be seen, such as a 30 year roof on what looked to be its 25^th year, some pretty hideous choices in wallpaper and some general updating to be done on the place. But none of the issues were of the deal-breaking variety. After all, it had the Link of Sudden. So, with no For Sale sign on their castle back home, the pair began negotiations on the new castle.

Meanwhile, back in Borderland, the goodly wife had been checking and double checking with Tuesday and the other middle managers as to the actual start date she could expect for her transfer to the Tri-Metro Immediate Healing Clinic. Tuesday, who was in charge of such scheduling, said that she wasn’t completely certain, yet, but that it looked like a mid-March/early April start date could be expected. It was reiterated by the goodly wife that such knowledge would be helpful to have as soon as possible, as she was about to sign on a new castle and would likely close on it within two months, possibly sooner.

After a week of back and forth negotiating on the price of the new castle, an acceptable amount for all was reached and papers were signed. The new castle was officially under contract. Inspections were soon begun and all came back glowing. If everything went to plan with the home loan, a closing date might even be reached between late February to late March. This looked like it was going to work out for all involved.

It was decided that before the castle in Borderland was to be placed on the market, it needed to get cleaned up but good. The place was awash in dog hair and cluttered with sundry crap. It was further decided that it would be financially beneficial to move a lot of that sundry crap to storage in Tri-Metro themselves rather than have movers do it. And it was during the boxing of said crap on one otherwise fine day that the goodly wife phoned from her workplace to inform the scribe that she had just learned something truly shocking. In an effort to seek an actual start date for her new position in Tri-Metro, she had used the magical telephony device at her place of work to contact the Grand King of all of the Places of Immediate Healing and inquired of him the start date that he had in mind. The Grand King had then responded, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but there’s no position open in TRI-METRO.”

And at this point the scribe’s own jaw tagged him in the junk.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Once Upon a Time... (Part 1)

...there was a beautiful maiden who came to live in an ancient hovel in the malodorous kingdom of Skyline, Mississippi. This was an odd place for this particular maiden to be found, as she had grown up in the distant land of Alaska, but the tale of how she came to be in Mississippi, while a good one, is not today’s story. Let us suffice to say that the maiden was in Skyline due to its proximity to Tupelo where she was finishing up her undergraduate apprenticeship in the healing arts of medical technology. One of the maiden’s fellow apprentices happened to mention one day that a friend of her husband was about to relocate to the Tupelo area where he was to use his golden voice to earn a living as a town crier in the industry called the Casting of Broad, or radio. And because the job of town crier paid startlingly little money, he was in search of cheap lodging. Very cheap. The maiden, in turn, mentioned that her particular hovel was very cheap to live in and rather cozy if you could overlook the fact that it had no heating to speak of, was forever on the verge of collapse, and was probably held together by the sheer adhesive power of roach droppings within the walls. Furthermore, it had a set of rooms for rent.

Within days the scribe himself had not only come to Tupelo to see the rooms in question, but he had secured lodging within them for himself and his cat. And soon after this, the maiden met the scribe for the very first time. He was a handsome fellow and she noted that he did indeed have a golden voice. She even helped him move his belongings into his rooms within the hovel and the two became friends. Soon their friendship turned to adoration, though neither would admit it even to themselves. It was a dangerous thing to adore someone when you knew you would soon be parted. For, you see, the maiden was only living in Skyline temporarily and was to be called away to the distant land of the Carolina of the North after her undergraduate apprenticeship was concluded.

The day they parted was a sad one, but Carolina of the North beckoned. They cried tears, hugged and promised to keep in touch. It did not take long for them to begin calling one another. It took even less time to start missing one another. Within months they made plans for the scribe to come and see the maiden. And so their courtship began. And thus a hellish year and a half was spent courting from 600 miles apart. Eventually, the pull of their love drew them together and the scribe left Skyline and Tupelo behind to join his betrothed in the Carolina of the North where the two were wed and the maiden at last became his goodly wife. The scribe returned to being town crier, albeit in a much bigger town. He also took a job in a call-center for the Star of “On”, because town crier still paid for shit.

Though the goodly wife had previously taken work as a technologist of medicine, her true goal was to return to a school of the healing arts in an effort to become a skilled healer herself. Unfortunately, her applications to schools in the Carolina of the North were rejected for two years straight. It wasn’t until her third year of application that she was finally accepted—not in the Carolina of the North, but in the not-too-distant province of the Virginia of the West. Though it meant their lives would be upheaved once again, the two of them gathered their few possessions and their cat and made the journey to this new and mountainous land. They settled in a collection of three small villages that together made one decent sized village, which was dubbed Tri-Metro.

While the goodly wife began her studies, the scribe sought to employ himself as a town crier in his new town as well. Alas, there were no crier’s guild or casting of broad stations that could employ live criers. It was a canned town, as they say. His golden voice would have to rest. Instead, the scribe instead took work as an apprentice to the local knowledge-keepers guild—or, as Saint Carolla once described it, the place where they hide the books. There he did labor for three years before deciding that the stories about the people he encountered during the course of his labor were too good not to chronicle. And so the scribe set about to do this on a near daily basis, amassing a tremendous amount of the stories which he shared with other people through the use of the web of the whole wide world. Such online scribing was called “blogging” and his blog was called Tales from the Place Where They Hide the Books. Many people enjoyed his stories and told him so. Other people were assholes. But write the tales he did for five more years.The scribe and his goodly wife found that they loved the Tri-Metro area, and the Virginia of the West as a whole. They had not initially planned to remain there beyond her studies, but had long since decided that it was a beautiful place to live their lives. They made friends and colleagues in their area and began making plans to remain there forever.

At the end of their first seven years in Tri-Metro, the goodly wife had secured a degree in her studies and had completed three years of apprenticeship in the healing arts. And after a fiery trial at the hands of the high lords of healing, she was given the freedom to go into the world and practice the healing arts with no supervision as a full-fledged healer. However, when it came time to decide what to do, the major opportunity to practice her healing arts came not in Tri-Metro but in a not-too-distant township on the border of their province and that of an adjacent province. This “Borderland” was where she could best practice her art. And, according to the healing guildmaster’s recruiter there, wouldn’t even have to work that hard to do it. She’d have PLENTY of time to spend with her family, because the Place of Healing would never seek to overwork the shit out of their healers. Nosir. She wouldn’t be spending ALL of her time in the hospital. Don’t even think of it. Even after all of their assurances, the goodly wife warned her recruiter that she had no intention of spending all waking hours at the Place of Healing. Their promises sounded fine, but if they turned out not to be true she would have no problem walking. They said she had nothing to worry about.

Because the goodly wife’s art earned their household far more money than the scribe earned by working in the place where they hide the books, the scribe left the knowledge guild and ended Tales from the Place Where They Hide the Books. Oh, he tried to continue chronicling his life in this new Land on the Border, but mostly this involved talking about the repairs they were doing to their new castle and complaining about people parking like assholes at the Mart of Wals. Over the coming months, he missed his days at the place where they hide the books, and the plentiful nature of his scribing life back then. He missed his friends and colleagues and the creative opportunities Tri-Metro offered.

The goodly wife (Dr. Goodly Wife) labored for the Place of Healing for two years. During that time, her knowledge base expanded quite a bit, especially when it came to recognizing members of the species of shape-shifting phalluses that ran the place. (They had only one eye, but often two faces.) She also learned much of the arcane language of contracts, which can seem to mean one thing, but be interpreted to mean something different. (For instance, the contract wording which, on the surface, promised a healthy annual student loan repayment bonus, but, upon clarification by the shape-shifting phalluses, actually meant that while they did have to pay her this bonus, they could then charge the cost of the bonus back to the goodly wife’s clinic and thus charge her own bonus back to her. Nice. What a bunch of dicks.) Furthermore, all of the recruiter’s promises of few late hours turned out to be as solid as the shit of a horse, for the Place of Healing and the shifty phalluses that ran it kept coming up with new and inventive ways to keep the goodly wife within their clutches as much as possible. They even added call to the existing arseload of call she was already saddled with. So at the end of her first two years, the Dr. Wife kept her promise, said "F*ck all ya'll" and left (after her contractual 90 days notice, of course, and just after the second annual student loan repayment bonus had been delivered—“Charge that one back to me, you f*ckers! I don’t work here anymore!”).

The other major reason that the goodly wife had departed the employment of the phalluses, is that she had found a new place to practice the healing arts. A friend of the goodly wife’s from her time of study had alerted her to this new place of healing—a place designed to see people in immediate need of healing with little to no patient followup required, not to mention NO CALL TIME WHATSOEVER. The friend herself worked for a similar Immediate Healing Clinic two towns over, but was soon going to depart her own clinic in favor of a third Immediate Healing Clinic that was being readied back in Tri-Metro. The Borderland Immediate Healing Clinic was a Godsend. And while its shifts were not short ones, it required only 14 of them per month. The goodly wife would finally be able to help those in immediate need and send them on their way with none of the usual hassle. It was pretty ideal.

Secretly, though, the scribe hoped that at some point in the not too distant future a position would open at the Tri-Metro Immediate Healing Clinic that the goodly wife could transfer into. He longed to return to his beloved township.


(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Milk & Cheese Vs. the TSA

Just got back from visiting my sister in Austin.

In addition to eating like an asshole, as is my Austin tradition, I also had the traditional visit to Austin Books & Comics, my favorite comic shop in the whole wide world. If you can think of a graphic novel or comic book trade paperback collection, chances are quite high that Austin Books & Comics will have multiple copies of it in stock. They also have a huge supply of statues, toys and figurines to keep your inner geek happy for decades.

While there I happened to spy a set of vinyl figurines cast in the shape of cartoonist Evan Dorkin's most famous creation Milk & Cheese. For those unfamiliar with Milk & Cheese, they're dairy products gone bad, known for their hatred of most things that aren't alcohol, mindless violence or the late TV show A Current Affair. (They once engaged in a successful two man war on drugs because they were tired of the anti-drug commercials interrupting their viewing of A Current Affair.) I love the characters and own every one of their comics, most of which are #1 issues. I also have both the flat illustrated Milk & Cheese refrigerator magnet set, but also the now rare three dimensional porcelain magnet produced by Graffiti Designs in the late 1990s. (Oooooh, ahhhhh.) Until that moment, though, I'd only seen pictures of the Milk & Cheese figures, as they were produced several years ago and in limited supply. Another reason I'd never seen them in person is because they cost around $70 at the minimum when they were first released and I was still smarting over the cost of the porcelain fridge magnet. Because of this, I had no idea how huge the figures are. The photos I'd seen didn't really give any sense of scale, so I'd assumed that Milk was probably smaller than the typical smallish carton of milk and Cheese a smallish wedge of cheddar. The figures were easily twice the size I had expected, though. They came packaged in a huge foot and a half long box decorated with Milk & Cheese comic strips. The display of the figs in the shop listed them for the usual $70, so I still wasn't going to bite. However, on further exploration into the toy section of the store, I saw that they had a endcap display of them that had the sets listed for $30 each. I figured they must be a former display model, or something had to be wrong with them to be at that low a price. But when I asked a clerk he said that the figs were dairy products reduced for quick sale because the store had bought too many sets. So I bought a set for $30.

And they're completely awesome!

Inside their box, Milk & Cheese are nestled securely inside a bagged, plastic vacuform insert along with their weapon accessories: a plastic broken gin bottle, a large plastic hammer, and a plastic stick with a plastic nail through it. I left everything in its place, didn't even crack the seal on the plastic bag and put it all back in the box. For a bit I considered shipping the box to myself in WV, saving me the trouble of packing such an enormous item in my check luggage. I also considered collapsing the box and packing the figs loose within my clothing. Then I changed my mind and instead packed the full box into my carry on gym bag since it was light enough that it wouldn't be a hassle.

On Saturday, we headed to the airport, checked our check bag and proceeded thorough the TSA security line. We did the whole remove all metal and run your carry on through the x-ray machine bit. I made it through the security screening before the bags and was able to look back at the x-ray display screens while I put on my shoes. On the screen was what looked like my satchel, at least from the snake nest of media cables I could see. I was sure this would take them a few moments to suss out. But it was actually the gym bag that they'd paused the conveyor belt to examine in depth. The tech stared at the x-ray. Then stared some more. Finally, he called one of the TSA officers over and said something to her before starting the belt again. My bags came rolling out.

"Whose bag is this?" the TSA lady asked pointing to the satchel.

"That's mine," I said.

"This is your bag?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sir, do you have any glass products packed in here?"

"Not that I'm aware of," I said.

Then the TSA agent seemed to look at the satchel for a moment, perhaps listening to someone speaking to her in an earpiece, for she then said, "No, this isn't the bag." She slid the satchel to me in its plastic tray. Then she pulled the tray containing my gym bag close and said, "Whose bag is this?"

"That's mine," I said again.

"This is your bag?" she asked again.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sir, do you have any glass products packed in here?"

"Not that I'm aware of," I said again. Did I, though? We had been to a Penzeys Spice store and had loaded up on little glass jars of curry powder and peppercorns and what not. But I'd definitely packed those in the check bag.

"You don't have any glass products?" she asked again, now with suspicion.

Had I stuttered? "Not that I'm aware of," I repeated.

Another pause and perhaps another listen to a voice in an earpiece.

"Sir, do you have any figurines in here?"

Figurines? Ohhhhh! .

"Yes," I said. "Yes, there are two."

"May I search the bag?"

"Go right ahead."

The TSA lady unzipped my gym bag and there at the top was the long Milk & Cheese box. She removed it from the bag, nosed around in the clothing that had surrounded it, found nothing made of glass, figurine or otherwise, and then began the process of opening the Milk & Cheese box itself.

"Um, technically I guess there is kind of a bottle in there," I said. "But it's a fake plastic gin bottle," I added. I didn't mention that the fake plastic gin bottle was sculpted to appear broken, nor did I mention the fake plastic stick with the fake plastic nail through it, nor that their accessories were supposed to represent weapons. By then she had the box open and had pulled out the plastic bag-covered vacuform insert with Cheese and Milk (that's the order they're packed in) staring up at her baring expressions of malice on their little Dorkiny faces, their hands clinched in fists of dairy fury. The TSA lady blinked down at them for a few seconds as though what she was seeing didn't compute. At least they're not flipping her off like my Milk & Cheese magnet, I thought. Then she smiled and said, "Oh, it's a game!"

"Actua-- Uh, yes, it's a game," I said.

She took the insert over to the x-ray tech to show him "the game". He seemed to approve, or at least not deny. She then repackaged my toys and zipped up the bag, after which I gathered my possessions and made my way over to where my wife was standing, shaking her head.

"Apparently Milk & Cheese caused some problems with the TSA," I said.

"Naturally," the wife said.

Humiliations and General Grossness (Part 4)

I slept very poorly. I kept having mini panic attacks that once the septic guys dug up the other side of the tank they would find something even more horribly and expensively wrong. What if the reason the pipe had broken within the tank was because that whole end of the tank had collapsed? That would suck.

At the ass crack of dawn, I finally arose to await the arrival of Terrance and his assistant. They'd said they would roll in around 7:30. I made extra coffee in case they needed some and commenced to wait. While I did, it began to snow. We'd had nary a flake since mid-November, which I've attributed to the fact that I'd had my snow tires installed in mid-November. But down the flakes were coming now. I wondered if it would mean a halt to the project for the day.

Around 8:30, Terrance and his assistant arrived driving a different truck from the previous day. This one was a smaller and with a flat black metal bed in the back upon which was mounted a bright and shiny new portajohn pump. Hitched to the back of the truck, though, was a long trailer on which was secured a medium sized backhoe. Terrance unloaded it and soon its treads were rolling up my driveway and then across the yard to the septic dig site.

As they set up, I told Terrance the story of Sadie rolling on the pipe. They agreed it was an awful experience, but I know it was far from the worst septic-based thing that had happened to them, so they didn't feel too bad.

With a bit of digging from the backhoe's scoop, a new hole was opened a few feet to the right from the previous one. Some fine tune digging with a hand shovel later and the tank's other lid was exposed. This time they hooked the chain for it across the backhoe's shovel and lifted it off. Inside was a deep dark and relatively empty space, save for some liquid in the bottom. Terrance borrowed my flashlight again and poked his head into the tank to have a look around. He explained that he needed to see which direction the pipe leading out to the drainage field was headed. The interior portion of that pipe was the broken one that Sadie had rolled on, which is why he had to look inside the tank to see where it had been connected before the break. It seemed to be at the southern end of the tank, so that's where they next began to dig to expose the pipe leading into the yard. As expected, this pipe was also broken and partially collapsed. He said this was likely due to the whole tank settling at some point and sheering off the pipe on the outside, which led to the breaking of the interior part of the pipe as well. It probably still worked to some degree, but not at prime efficiency.

Within half an hour, Terrance and his assistant had dug out around the pipe, sawed through it below the break, installed a new section of thick PVC pipe that ran from within the tank, through the tank wall and connected to the drainage field pipe. We were now back in business.

"Wait about two weeks then pour a whole box of Rid-X down the toilet," Terrance advised. Then he added, "You still want that tree pulled up?" I explained that the wife did not want that tree dug up at all, but had agreed to it on the grounds that within a couple of months this would no longer be our house and we would not have to be concerned with whether there was a tree imbalance in front of it. Terrance's assistant hooked their chain around the middle of the tree, the other end to the backhoe and with a smooth application of reverse they pulled it right out of the ground, roots and all. Then it was just a matter of recovering both sides of the freshly repaired tank and smoothing the mud back down in a mostly level fashion. It doesn't look too bad. Not nearly as bad as the wife expected. The tree itself I sawed all the limbs from and will shortly carve it up for firewood with my chainsaw. I'll plant grass over it and hopefully by the time the place sells we'll have something of a yard over there again. And when it comes time for the new owners to have the septic inspected, we expect it will get a good grade. Much like the one the house that we are purchasing has received. The location of that new house and the story of how and why we came to buy it, however, is another story.