dead a la modem

There is a reason Mexpatriate has gone dark for a couple of days -- and may remain so for a few more.

I flew back to Manzanillo on Saturday afternoon. The flight went well, but my arrival had two surprises. When I returned from Oregon a month ago, I was welcomed by a shredded umbrella. On Saturday, it was the sound of silence.

To be more precise, it was the sound of silence of my telephone and modem.

When my friend Ruette picked me up at the airport, she told me we had experienced an enormous thunderstorm in Barra de Navidad earlier in the week. A lightning strike had taken out her modem.

She was not alone. When I tried to link with my wifi, I found nothing. A little troubleshooting indicated the modem was not connecting with the internet. And my telephone had no signal.

I have been here before. When I lived in Villa Obregon, I lost all of my electronics that were hooked to my telephone line. The culprit was lightning.

So, I knew the drill. I had to get a Telmex customer service representative on the telephone. She would then ask me to take a series of actions -- turn the modem power off and on, reset the modem, remove all of the connections and restore them -- to determine if I needed a modem or not.

I did all of that. The fact that the modem smelled of smoke was not encouraging.

First thing this morning, I called the Telmex 800 number on my cell phone, and waited 42 minutes for an answer. When the customer service representative came on line, we struggled with my Spanish for about 15 minutes. Things were going well until we came to an action I could not translate.

I wanted to avoid talking with an English-speaking representative. But I finally surrendered and requested one. The phone rang twice, then it switched to a busy signal. I was disconnected.

I called again, but hung up after waiting for 32 minutes. Next time, I will have an assistant on my quest.

As for the telephone, I bought a cheap unit to be certain my line is still working. If it is not, I will need to schedule a visit from the Telmex man.

The reason I am telling you this tale of woes is that until my line is restored, Mexpatriate will be on vacation. I am writing this through the good graces of Rooster's. But that is not going to be my final solution.

Instead of writing, I will catch up on my reading and cool my heels in the pool.

Going dark is not necessarily all bad.