Thank You Gandhi

On Tuesday - I had just come back after a particularly gruelling trip with Mother when I came home to find a young man tugging at the cable box which is at the side of my house.

As I approached him warily, I motioned to Mother to bring TJ out since the sight of my 100 lb dog, straining at his leash with his teeth bared is usually enough to send the most persistent door-to-door salesman running.

It seems that my neighbour had placed a call to the local cable company because they were having some problems with their tv signal and the sub contractors that the cable company sent out were complete cluckheads. In their zeal to fix the neighbours cable they cut mine off. WTF?

Three hours, 2 bottles of water (for them), a glass of white wine (for me) and a rather heated discussion later - the cable and the phone were back on but the internet was dead. I knew then that I had to make the call that I was dreading - I had to tell Mr C. that he would be offline for 7 days which was the earliest that they could get someone out to look at the Internet.

The conversation with him and his drive home were surprisingly short.

Mr. C came through the door guns (or should I say Mouses/Mice (sp?) ablazing ready to do battle. After exchanging pleasantries with Mother, a cursory pat for the dog and a brief kiss for me - he excused himself to go to the bathroom. On his way there he stopped to pick up the cordless phone.

He was in there for 30 mins and although he tried rather valiantly to keep his voice down, I could hear him speaking rather strongly to the person on the phone. By the time he emerged - he'd manged to get us 2 free weeks of Internet Service and most importantly a Friday visit from the cable company. Only 3 nights without the internet not the 7 that I'd been quoted.

Tuesday night (Night #1) was fine but Wednesday night (Night #2) as we sat there looking at each other - Mother, me, Mr. C - Mr. C, Mother, me (you get the picture) I realized that we needed help - we had to get access to the internet ASAP! I frantically searched for an unsecured wireless connection and much to my surprise there was a new unsecured network in the neighbourhood and it was called Ghandi.

As we both raced to log onto Ghandi and get back into the cyberworld - I wondered what would this peace loving, non-confrontal man think about this unlawful act on his namesake but then I found this quote from him which I thought quite appropriate.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
Mahatma Ghandi