Saturday, January 08, 2005

Sociology and High Tech…with Puppies

Ethnic stereotypes are the work of a moment in the mind. Dare I confess that I like shorthair puppies better than fluffy puppies? Surely it is a quirk, a coincidence that the fluffy puppies are the outgoing ones, the extroverts, the in-your-face love-me boys and girls. The short hair ones are self-possessed, calm, lovers of delights most sensual and daily, like curling in front of the fire or sitting in my lap.

It is a fluffy puppy (Baby Blue) that is now chewing on my wireless network card. It is a fluffy puppy (Jack) who is always first in line for puppy treats, and it is a fluffy puppy (Piggie) who is cutest, biggest, and most responsive to his name. When I open the dishwasher, it is Piggie in the dishwasher. It is a fluffy puppy (Snowflake) taking the lead in a four-way tug-of-war with washcloth as object of desire. It is a fluffy puppy (Daisy) who claims to love me better than she loves any other creature on earth. Little does Daisy know, eight-week-old soul that she is, that eleven-year-old Toby has the lock on that distinction. Ah! If I ever find a man who loves me as much as Toby does, I will have either a stalker or a love I hardly dare imagine.

This morning I called my ISP to troubleshoot my internet connection. I will spare you the details, but in the end…the puppies had unplugged my router, sending the electrons meant for my home wireless network off into the ozone. Customer service guy in Indiana just laughed.

And I laughed, too. After three weeks of battling Dell’s outsourced customer service reps in India (“Don’t tell me your name is Victor or Sean…I know it is Sohail or Rajiv…and that really doesn’t matter to me if only you could do something about my failed hard drive.”), but my tiny local ISP has outsourced the middle-of-the-night service not to India but to Indiana. And when we find the problem, it is that the puppies have unplugged the router. Hah!


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