Day 32

Hot Dogs and Chewing Tobacco.

Well, what can I say . . . the apple didn't fall too far from the damned tree.  My young son is not the only addict in the family.  See, I have a nasty little addiction of my own.  A monkey on my back that I just can't seem to shake . . . untill now.  My little simian friend goes by the name of Nicotine.  My preferred method of consumption?  Smokeless.  Always there in a pinch so to speak.  Clearly not a safe alternative to smoking, or at least so sayeth the packaging and certainly a way to fast track yourself into early tooth loss.  Nothing says sexy like a guy missing his fronts.  So, the fact that they don't have such a creature here in France was certainly an issue of much contention and ultimately another great reason for making the move.  If I am not strong enough of will to quit on my own, perhaps moving to a desert isle where the supply is non-existant will do the trick.  I emptied my last can this morning and have regreted it ever since.  All that is on my mind now is sending up a flair for a rescue party to come and find my withering body.

Once the body becomes accustomed to a substance, it REALLY doesn't like you denying it access to that item.  My irritability was only heightened by the fact that I had many administrative tasks to tend to.  I am not big on paperwork and sitting at a desk making phone calls.  I have done that for far too many years in my life and returning to it in even a limited fashion makes me sick to my stomach . . . or is that the lack of nicotine again . . . hard to tell at this point.  One of the calls on the list was to my new wireless carrier.  As I may have already mentioned, all communications services can be bundled up into one nice little package that would on its surface seem to be as easy as pie.  Not so much.  The sattelite television is still not receiving the channels we requested and the only computer capable of connecting to our network is mine.  Not such a good deal as my wife is ALWAYS working and the only way we see her at all is that she can access her work from home.  It was time to get things straightened out even if it took all afternoon on hold.  And of course, IT WOULD.

We had been fortunate enough to luck into the number for the English speaking help line at our mobile carrier.  The best part is that this experience differs not from what you would experience back home.  The individual on the other end does in fact speak the English, however, it has a remarkably middle eastern accent.  I believe the gentleman's name was "Shawn", or at least that was the next name on his list.  He didn't sound like any Shawn I had ever known, but I was not going to start some holy war here, I just need internet access.  Well, it seems old Shawn couldn't help because the question I asked him was not on the script they provided him at his first day on the job.  Shawn said "hold d fone pease" and I was immediately wisked through their phone system, right into the French call center.  After a confused Bon Jour . . Hello?  Hello?  Bon Jour exchange, Pierre (I am guessing at his name since we didn't get to introductions) hung up on my ass.  This song and dance went on three more times before I decided that it would be best if I just sent all of my correspondence through carrier pigeon.  I am sure that Shawn and Pierre are having a good laugh about this as we speak . . . Pricks.

On to my next project.  French lessons.  Ah yes, time to jump on that educational chuck wagon and get er done.  Yet another uncomfortable exchange that went absolutely nowhere.  The woman at the school could BARELY speak the English and I didn't quite catch her name, but I had the sneaking suspicion it was Shawn again doing his best falsetto.  Prick.  The only thing that I was certain of from this exchange was that I needed the lessons and that they did not have any beginner courses open at the moment.  Looks like I will be sticking with Rosetta Stone after all.  Now on the edge of complete emotional fatigue and doing my best to cope with the Nicotine withdrawl that was starting to make my face twitch, it was time to do my usual run through the streets of Gotham to pick up my children.  So, I jumped in the old bat mobile and headed out.

Upon my return I was pleased to note that at least one thing had gone well today.  The movers made good on their word and came and picked up the cardboard mountain I had built at the front of our home.  With a few moments left in the working day, I thought I would spend the remainder of the afternoon trying to figure out the satellite system.  I went to every help forum on the net and still could not come up with the right answers.  With nerves frayed like the short end of an old shoe lace, I shut down the computer in just enough time to open the front door to greet my wife home from work.

Sometimes prayers are answered.  When my wife arrived home, I was informed that some of the gals from her office back in the States sent her a care package.  Contents:  Jolly Ranchers, ID badge holder, and a half roll of chewing tobacco in my flavor of choice.  Looks like my little primate is safe for now and I owe my wife's friends dearly for saving my rapidly declining mental health.  Since the boys had a late lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, it was decided to throw some fruit at them and head to the electronics emporium to see if we could get to the bottom of all of our technology issues.  We evidently asked the correct questions and were rewarded with some solutions.  The home phone now works, I am able to sign my wife on to our internet connection and I was able to upload a million sattelite channels with the flip of a switch.  Now, as always, there is some bad with the good.  First, the phone works for land line calls, but there seems to be a problem when calling some cellular phones.  Second is that my wife is able to get on the internet at home now, however, in order to do so she must enter a 7,234 digit pin number and then verify the same.  Finally, the satellite.  I am still not able to view the premium channels that I thought I paid for, but I was able to upload all the free channels within the reach of my dish.  The problem you ask?  I would say that a good 3/4 of those channels are German Porn.  Guten tag meine frau!  There is some scandanavian porn in there too, just to mix things up a bit.  This is probably not appropriate programming for my children, and if I hope to get anything at all done during the day we better get rid of these channels.

So, yet another fun filled day in the books.  I am now a day behind . . . and no, I didn't stay up all night watching porn instead of entering my blog from yesterday.  After dinner I will post once more so that you all can get caught back up to where I am now.  See you in a few.