Delayed Gratification

 

Today, I was going to write our holiday letter, but I’m not so sure that this will turn out to be that, yet. Although I’m much less the ehh… hmm procrastinator than my husband appeared to be. He a typical Cancer, Crab moving from side to side checking every angle kind of guy. Me, I like the heat or rather extremes including the cold weather ones, that’s what has appeared to where I seem to thrive most likely.  It must be the Scorpio sign I’d been born under. I’m not impulsive. I’m just like, ‘Yo! Let’s get a move on here.’ Even if I don’t know the complete result.

Most things my husband and I thought in unison on. I know so now, even going on year six of my widowhood.  Such he’d said many years ago, “Hey. I called up our phone company and guess what?”  He’d paused as I perked up like a yellow lab ready to get a snack. “Yeah?”  He’d continue, “They got this thing called Fios.” I’d listen then say, “Should I get a cup of coffee?” He’d pause, “No. I already set up the appointment. I’ll be here for it. We’re getting the Bundle plan.” He was like a little kid getting a new train set.

Unlike his picking out carpet at the smallest carpet place one could find. It took him two hours to select carpeting/flooring for our first owned home. It was just after I’d picked out the paint chips which took me all of twenty minutes. He was in charge of picking out the carpeting, and all the flooring. It was near two hours in the smallest carpet store God had ever created. It was like watching paint dry.  And they didn’t even have any coffee. I swear I thought I was on a hike in stick season, no babbling brook, no mountain to climb, all flat land and all the leaves were all the same color—dirt brown. By the way, my husband would be cool with me poking fun at his level of procrastination. So, all good here.

So, fast-forward to the past couple of months. Trouble in TV land occurred. At first, I could almost hear my husband’s words, “Oh it’s from the atmosphere—.” Okay, I’d buy that. And that’s what I told myself, for weeks, that then had become a couple months. Too, I’d just had a free upgrade by my phone company on the backup to our Fios Bundle system, as they now no longer rely on a battery backup system anymore. I watched the guy install it on a warm day, at most a few months ago. Six weeks later, I began having problems with our television. And of course it was affecting Sunday Night Football. It had been affecting 60 Minutes all along, which I’m a bit peeved for their interviewing a dirt bag who gets more airtime than God, so it worked with my recent boycott of 60 Minutes.

So, I figured at least I was safe for Sunday Night Football on another station. Mind you, we never had cable television. We have a huge antenna on top of our home. That’s not about procrastination; that’s about us being frugal and wanting our children to be readers instead of boob-tube watchers. Too, I had not come from money at all. I came from, ‘Mom’s ready to lose the house’. And after twenty-five years she had indeed lost the home and ended up temporarily homeless for a week or so, living out of her car in her late fifties that she could no longer drive. Mental illness, abuse, alcoholism and drug use will do that to someone. Some survive it to harm others and others are harmed and take the spiral staircase downward, never able to fully recover to living a full life. Many things made me frugal. My husband, his frugality were both his parents witnessed ‘The Great Depression’. Yeah, they survived just fine, yet they had a clue about the other side of the coin which had affected others in their neck of the woods.

Going back to delayed gratification. I can say I have not recently heard that term from other people in over two decades. It had been as if my husband and I would comment on such and no one else was aware there was such a thing as delayed gratification.

Meanwhile, here I was frustrated last week as I settled to watch some college football. It was because it was the only channel, aside from my PBS Passport donation plethora of channels. PBS Passport access was great and all, yet I wasn’t in the mood to view an old movie, even a classic. I needed my fix of Law & Order or FBI and well, it’d been weeks since I’d been able to watch either of them due to television issues. The inability to suffice my habit of watching my favorite crime series television, that I’d felt had some merit to them, was indeed frustrating.

Over a week’s period I’d put in nearly ten hours trying to figure out and fix our television issue. But to no avail. To the point, I decided to get an app, so that at least I could enjoy Sunday Night Football and then the Olympics. And I’d get the monthly plan because for $10.97 per month I could always just discontinue it if it didn’t solve my craving for watching somewhat live action in sport and a crime series that I’ve gotten addicted to.

Soon after that past week and hours, and the final night of a 90-minute frustration bout trying to fix my television issues, I texted a neighbor. She responded and said that tomorrow someone in their family would try and figure out what the problem was, as she’d stated they’d had a similar problem with another channel and were able to solve it.

The next afternoon my neighbor’s husband arrived from two doors over. I figured I was either saved, or he’d give me some good advice. After 30-minutes of the two of us trying to figure this television issue out he said, “Maybe, you’ll just have to spend a little extra money.” I shook my head, “Nope. Not happening.” We stood there staring at the television set one more time. Then he said, “Call your phone company. You’re paying them, they should provide you good service.” I nodded. He left and I then got on the phone and called my provider.

I went through a few automations before I realized they were repeating and I was getting nowhere. Then I finally got a live human, he couldn’t help me, yet I realized he was unsure if he could or could not help me. So, he passed me to another person who was not helping and put me on automation. I called a third time, again all automation no live human, nothing was being answered. Then I called a fourth time, same. The fifth time, after automations, I got a person in support, she heard my frustration, as I’d explained now it’d been over 45 minutes when I’d tried repeatedly to get to someone who could assist me in my quest of perhaps may or may not be wrong with my Fios plan. She explained how old my plan was and I had been grandfathered in. I thought and expressed my desire not to pay for anything I didn’t need.  She advised me that my router was at least seventeen years old. I replied, “But I had unplugged everything and then rebooted the router, and it worked for everything else in our home.” She said, “…you need a new router probably.” I somewhat agreed, seeing her point. I asked about price and she explained that it wasn’t her department and she could not comment on price or plans at all. She had to pass me to another service person. I practically begged her not to make me call her company back again. She promised and she held true to that promise, connecting me to the ‘plan’ service center.

I then was on the phone with the plan person, she seemed kind, methodical as I’d explained a little of the situation and wanted to know what plan would best suit our needs. She double checked who I was and what my account was. I now could probably recite the account number by heart after doing so twelve other times, at the very least. I expressed to her that I’d been with them over 26 years. And that they now had me paying for three different plans covering phones and the like.

All told when the plan service person finished, she said, “The router is a rental for five years. It will be included in your bill.” She gave me the price. I thought there had to be a catch, because she’d mentioned installation. I knew the installation fee could be as much as $600.  Since I’d explained to her and the support person on the phone over the past 75 minutes that not only had I tried to remedy the issue for hours myself. Too, had a neighbor come over and try and figure it out with me. I’d now had gone through so many automations and people trying to get an answer from their support and plan services departments I hoped the installation wouldn’t be $600 or that much either.

She explained, I was going to get a new router with double the internet speed, the television plan included which I found out was so much more access than I’d had. With tax included $1 more per month and that they were waiving the installation fee. In the end the newer plan was cheaper and included the router rental in the bill. That was my issue. So, it’s double the internet GB for less. She set up the installation date and time within a 48-hour period of my being on the call with her.

So, here I was within 48 hours of that phone call, and the installation person was on time at my front door that day. They’d said it could take up to two hours for installation. It took the man a little over an hour.

And I got a bonus. More screenwriting material as the man who’d shown up was a grumbling mid-fifty-year-old man, built robustly, a bit like Rosanne Barr. I had the same personality show up years before in a female version as a Hospice nurse working the midnight shift. She was getting my husband’s body ready for the funeral home. He’d just passed from a terminal illness a couple hours prior at just after four in the morning in our bedroom. I could see her fatigue from her long shift. She’d then meekly asked for my help. I was all in, for it was my husband and she was overly stressed. Flash-forward too was this man.

When the installer arrived this week, it was sunny, yet brutally windy and a chill that could roll through anyone just walking a mere ten feet outside. I saw his plight. At first, everything seemed to him an issue. I almost laughed because the comedy I foresaw in a screenplay was happening right before my very eyes. Like they say, ‘You can’t make this stuff up.’ About thirty minutes into his installing the wires for the new router he’d calmed down. I asked him a few times if he needed anything. Such as if he’d like me to make him some coffee or if he needed water. He politely said, “No.”

As I monitored his work and such, yet not hanging over him. But being the safe homeowner, glancing up as I was working on a piano piece writing the notes in a song I’m aiming to play on the piano over the next few weeks he calmed. He began to be more neutral and eventually gave me a smile in the last few minutes. Then he showed me how to get the Wi-Fi on my phone and advised me as to other areas it would affect in my home. I thanked him as he’d finished explaining and was picking up all his gear and too, he said he logged in that he was returning the old router for me, which I hadn’t expected. As I held the front door open for him upon him leaving, I said, “Thank you. Happy Holidays! And have a Merry Christmas. Stay safe and be well.” He smiled, thanked me and said, “You too.”

Afterwards, I redid the television Wi-Fi resets and everything that Wi-Fi concerned. I discovered I had even more channels than I’d know what to do with. And they were clear too. I had my three apps; one I donated for the other two I pay monthly for. And I discovered another free app. It was something that I remembered as a child. It was quite soothing, yet back then I’d never truly thought about it in that fashion. It would be on television in the 1960s and 1970s when all the stations would go quiet on Christmas Eve.

It was the Yuletide Log Fireplace shown on a station or two on our small to medium black and white Zenith television set with bunny ears, and no remote. You had to get up and turn the knob to change the channel, the volume and contrast. Here I was now with a beautiful color flat-screen television set in our living room, all alone now.

As I flipped through the apps and got things set up as the sun was set into the early sunset of December. I found in color that channel with the constant Yuletide Log Fireplace for free. I turned it on and flopped back onto our living room couch and remained mesmerized for 30 minutes in peace, as I quietly whispered, “Wow.” --- Jody-Lynn Reicher