I'm having flashback from this Friday...

... and unlike at The Oral Report it's not a good thing when I do it.

It all began in Reno... no, wait, that's something else, something far, far better.

It all began on Wednesday, when I got sick enough of having my internet connection drop out for no reason for 15-30 minutes at a time to call tech support. I jumped through their hoops, and the CSR determined that I should replace my aging cable modem. Fine, I vowed, 'I'll do that...on Friday.' Five words that would trigger a personal apocalypse.

Thursday went by. MY internet connection was flaky, but hope loomed on the horizon. Tomorrow was Friday. Friday I had off this week, to attend a holiday party thrown by my brother Lions. I was looking forward to it, and since I had some party-related errands to run, left the house at 2:30 to head for the cable company's local office, armed with directions from a CSR (I'll just call him Beelzebub later, for clarity's sake) I called earlier in the day.

That conversation I found a tad frustrating. Had I but known then what I was dealing with, the whole rest of the day might have gone differently. For all I know the entire course of my life has been forever altered by that day. I called for one simple thing: directions to the nearest cable office, as I knew the one I had been aware of had first moved and then been closed. So Beelzebub takes my call, and proceeds to get sufficient information to process my rather simple request. I was savvy enough to head off further attempts to 'troubleshoot' my issue. Modems can't be replaced over the phone. I know that, and I didn't even need to get certified to learn it. So he looks up the nearest office in his little database, and offers to provide me with MapQuest directions to get there. Which was nice.

But I've used MQ before, and I know that sometimes their names for roads aren't the names the locals use, so I asked him to just give me the address, and I'd do the MQ myself. 'Oh, noooo', he pleaded, 'I can tell you the directions, they're very easy!'

Fool me, I let him talk me out of doing my own MQ. And his father (you know, Satan?) laughed.

I get to the first 'complicated part of the directions, getting off the highway, and onto side roads. And it turns out (I find out hours later) that he told me to go the wrong way. Left instead of right. So I proceeded to wander fruitlessly on side roads for TWO DAMN HOURS, because I HAD to have that new modem, because I REFUSE to live without broadband.

Finally, it is 4:30pm, and Beelzebub had already cheerfully informed me that their office closed at 5pm sharp, so I knew the situation was getting desperate. So, I did it.

I admitted to myself that I was lost.

I pulled into a gas station.

I left my vehicle.

I went inside.

I...

(oh the shame of it!)

...I asked for directions.

From a woman.

And that is when I found out that I was in the wrong city.

I managed not to stroke out, and retreated to my car, muttering death threats against CSR#2, and his family. And then I proceeded to turn the air inside my car a deep shade of blue. It was now 4:55pm, I had no chance of restoring my internet tonight, and in one hour I would be expected to be your typical Falstaffian 'jolly fat guy' at the party.

So I drove into town, went to a drug store to get an appropriate gag gift for our bizarre traditional gift exchange, which is hard to describe, but always a hoot. Present secured, I then went across the parking lot to a novelty burger shop where they make burgers out of strange animals like ostriches (frickin' DELICIOUS, tastes like beef, chews like turkey, less cholesterol and fat than anything that doesn't have roots), buffaloes, and thankfully, because I wanted to be at least partially responsible for the death of something beautiful or majestic, elk.

It may have just been my mind, but that elk tasted like CSR#2's blood, and the blood of his children, to me. I savored every morsel. Then, partially restored to good spirits by an offering of blood, I set out to do my social duty.

And realized, after coming up to the host's former address, that he had moved during the year, and I no longer knew his new address. Looking down at the passenger seat, I saw that I also did not have my address book handy.

So, you know, I didn't go to the party. My upstairs neighbor managed to get me to watch a comedy DVD up a stand-up comic ventriloquist (the one who works with Walter the old fart, the Mexican guy on a stick, and the crazy monkey puppet), and that settle my hash a LITTLE, but I still needed to wash down that hate-death-murder-kill-kill-kill impulse with a lotta alcohol.

Not exactly a banner day off for me.

There is a happy ending though. With a few stiff shots in me, I called the cable company that night, and informed the that they would be dropping off my new modem Saturday morning. Which they did. Maybe it was something in my tone of voice...

The rest of the weekend went ok.