the cock crowed

I was in a Bible story.

The neighbor's cock crowed thrice. Well, I suspect it was more than that. But I only heard it three times.

He is one of those satisfied fowl. Pampered with food and hens. His one job is to announce the arrival of the sun. And, unlike his neurotic fighting brothers who persistently announce their neuroses, this guy sticks to his once-a-day job.

But, unlike Peter's denial of the messiah, the cock did not portend one of my inevitable sins (not that there were no candidates). It was simply time to get out of bed.

Since moving to Mexico, I usually have no idea what day of week it is. With one exception. Sunday. Church at 10 AM is the only regular entry on my calendar.

And Sunday it was. Before I went to bed, I had read the portion of John's gospel that we would be studying. Jesus' arrest in the garden, his sham of a trial, and Peter's denial. That is probably why the cock had me in a Peter frame of mind.

Saturday night, tropical storm Aletta passed by well off of our coast. But she gave us several gifts. Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Lots of lightning.

Because the storm hit us in the middle of the night, I did not rush around the house unplugging electronics. Even when lightning struck within blocks of the house. As it often does.

So, I was relieved when I was preparing for church to discover that everything seemed to be working fine. That is, until Omar told me in the afternoon that there was no internet.

He was correct. The transformer and the modem were dead. And nothing would revive them.

On Tuesday, I finally got through to a Telmex service representative. Or, my friend, Julio did. He has far more patience in dealing with Telmex than I do. And this time, he lost his patience.

When I moved here, Telmex had a great customer service routine for exchanging fried modems. I would drive an hour to Manzanillo and exchange the dead for the quick.

Several years ago, Telmex added a new step. To get a replacement modem, I had to report it to the frustrating customer service representatives at Telmex. (You know the type. They ask for your address and then tell you you have misspelled the street name because they have all of that information on a computer screen.) But, with the report number, I could get a new modem the same day.

No more. After spending 45 minutes on the telephone reciting information that Telmex already had, the representative told Julio that a modem would be shipped to me by DHL.

That was the good news. The bad news was that it would not ship for almost a full week. Next Monday.

So, that leaves me without any internet at the house. I am writing this essay at one of my favorite haunts. Rooster's in San Patricio. But, because it is a favorite, people I know stop by and sit down to chat.

That is not conducive to writing. But, I go out to eat for the socializing. It makes little sense to shoo people away just because I have another purpose right now.

All of that is prelude to let you know that I may be offline for a few days. Not for a lack of material or a desire to write (I have both), but because of technical difficulties.

When I say I moved to Mexico because I wanted to get up each morning and have no idea how I was going to get through the day. Well, this qualifies as one of those days.

If I can, I will rely on the kindness of strangers (and friends) to post musings before Monday. If not, the cock and I will see you at sunrise on Tuesday.

I hope.