Dearest Readers, Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? All the while bearing the weighty admission of our ineptitude as punctual foreign correspondents, our blemished titles of dependable and devoted progeniture, we hereby attempt to provide an account of our most recent and still fresh trials and tribulations, in the hopes that we may set forth the standard for posts to come, both in their expediency (for we have only just now acquired internet access) and in their quality of content and style. For fear of being eternally charged with the weight of a celestia so filled with neglected Mercurial responsibilities, we beg forgiveness, for as we lack well-pointed hats and winged shoes, so too our shoulders fall short of that titanic task of sky-bearing. Alas! Our trade makes us more proud of the Vastus Medialis than the northerly Pectoralis Minor.
Posts below, which actually have earlier birth dates than this propitiative introduction, will fill you all in on the bulk of our initial activities on the way to, and once arrived at, our current situation at Gusano Center. The present objective is to provide a history of our struggle against The Great Beast of Spanish Bureaucracy, or more properly, against one of its myriad debilitating appendages which had rooted itself firmly like a sluggish tumor into the unprotected flesh of our communications provider’s soft underbelly.
The medium through which this post is conveyed is the very treasure of the battlefield for which we so heroically sacrificed our life-energy these past two weeks. And indeed, the scene smolders still; Jose retains a hint of residual annoyance due to our pertinacity, the modem peters in and out of functioning status, and our greatest casualty, Chris Duffy, tragically is still mired behind enemy lines, incapable of connecting to the world wirelessly due to outdated equipment.
The whole misadventure began when Chris betrayed to Jose the importance of this treasured amenity to the Gringo cause. Having just insulted Jose’s plans for our living situation by moving out of his apartment and into the team’s (which aside from lacking internet or phone connections, had no heat, has no heat), we had unassumingly provided Jose with a stinging “You asked for it” opportunity where the delay of said service reminded us daily of our fall from a prelapsarian Eden to the barren and unprotected quarters of independence across town. We were at Jose’s mercy because he was the financier of the whole pursuit.
For some time, we were without a mode of communication to Jose, save for undertaking to ride to his apartment where he likely would not have been, to talk to him in person. Finally he found for us an old cell phone to use, so that we could more effectively prod at him to get the wheels moving in the direction of internet service. Of course, he still held firm the reins of power, since we could only ring him once and hang up, waiting for him to return the call. In Spain, one is charged per telephone call instead of having a flat rate. After several days of persuasion through visits to the apartment and telephone tag games, a strange little nervous man showed up at our door. Chris was overjoyed at the sight of the ‘ONO’ logo on the breast of this person’s shirt. Incapable of successfully expressing his excitement in spanish verbiage, he welcomed the little man behind the glasses into our dumpy, poorly lit flat, with a happy full bodied bellow of “ohhhh si si”. We talked things over with this ONO salesman, were assured of a free installation and modem, and were lacking only an account number to seal the deal. He allowed us the use of his phone, but Jose did not answer. After repeated dialing, Jose answered. When I told him I needed an account number, he suddenly hung up and was indifferent to our repeated redials. To have come so close, only to fall short by ten digits! No matter, we thought. Once we have the account number, we can call this shifty-eyed little man back and give him the information.
The next day, we discovered that Jose’s annoyance when he asked us incredulously what had made us believe he would just hand over his account number. It turns out that the guy who came had come just by coincidence- he was merely in the neighborhood making sales calls. Jose had wanted to work his magic, to ‘wheel and deal’ as they say, with ONO to get the cheapest price possible (He’s not called ‘The Worm’ for nothing). After much discussion in not very much time (Jose speaks quite rapidly, as he does everything else), we finally arrived at the agreement that Jose would consent to giving ONO man a call to relay his account information. We were told that the installer would come within a day or two.
Three days later, we walked all the way to the ONO headquarters office to talk to someone directly, to see if someone could get out to help us before the weekend. The one secretary at her post was busy calming down a middle aged women who sounded like she was ready to have a heart-attack arguing against unfair charges. While waiting, we made use of the two sample internet connections. Actually one and one-half. The second, to which Chris delegated me, had a malfunctioning screen setting which oriented all icons and banners 90 degrees from their true normal orientation. After a stiff neck had firmly set in from my cocked sideways gaze, the plate cleared and we were up to bat.
The pressure was on to work my pleading magic; Chris had been coaching me on our goals, our plan of attack, our demands which had to be directed toward this mouthpiece of some part of the ungainly beast, or the secretary of it’s right pinky toe perhaps, against which we had committed our cause. The goals, the plan of attack, the demands, they all seemed to run into a brick wall when we were told simply that the installer was coming on monday at 4pm. I asked if it could be changed but she said it was out of her control. You learn in Spain why people are so relaxed. It is because no one has any control over anything. She said it so cheerfully, as if she had come to terms long ago with the fact that her job was to indulge customers’ in their fantastical assumption that ONO would place them in direct contact with someone who could offer the clientele more than their condolences for maltreatment.
Back to our apartment we went with our tails between our legs. Then came the long awaited hour. Then, two hours later, came the long awaited dude. He got the process going. We were sure we had made it through the thick of the tumorous appendage. But we were wrong. Once again the beast raised it’s massive horned toe and pinned us helplessly to the ground- the installer claimed that he didn’t have permission to install the modem for free, because it wasn’t written up in his order papers. You know, it was out of his control. So, he left and we had to call Jose again.
Jose said we had to find the papers that we originally signed with shifty eyes so that we could obtain his contact info. Duffy had taken the papers as a reference for our address so that when he talked to the airlines about his missing bike, he could provide them with said information. We waited for Duffy to return. When he returned, he emptied his pockets and we found the paper balled up. The number hung on for dear life on the corner of a torn edge. We called Jose. He didn’t call back. We waited. We called Jose. He called us back and we gave him the number. He said he would talk to squinty eyes. We called Jose later to ask if he had secured us a free modem once again, to which he answered in the affirmative. When was the installer coming? It was out of his control.
We went to the office again the following day to see about advancing the visit from Mr. Installer. To our surprise, no visit was scheduled: that was something that required coming down to the office to take care of, which we had only done on a whim. I asked why the installer hadn’t been made aware of our free modem agreement. She answered with an affected, sympathetic strain to her voice, that the installers have no way of knowing what sort of agreement the clients and the salesmen come to. Yes, apparently. Such a line of communication would be far too much to assume!
We scheduled the visit for the following day, which is now this day, and our happy little story comes to a close. The battle against our enemy was not won, but we can safely say that the treasure has been secured. We have weathered the worst that the pinky toe could administer, though the beast’s right arm will surely prove a more robust enemy when we attempt to secure for ourselves Spanish Visas. At least that campaign doesn't threaten the same lack of communication that this one has. Until soon...
