The Case of the Purloined Pixels

Lexington, Ky. — It’s not uncommon to have a bad day or even a couple of bad days.

So for an example of how absolutely dreadful yesterday was, let’s start with the least bad thing that happened.

I was walking Lily, my 14-year-old English Springer Spaniel, on a crisp and pristine early morning walk.

My iPhone buzzed, and this message appeared:

“Oh mercy. A WCCK bomb just dropped. Can I call you?”

It was Sharon, my good friend. WCCK is Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky, a historic woman’s philanthropic group. I currently have the honor of serving as president, with Sharon as my vice president. We have lunches, raise money and shine a light on nonprofit organizations in our community. We dress up in our Sunday best and love on each other for several hours a month.

Trust me. We aren’t doing anything to deserve having a bomb dropped on us.

Turns out, the kickoff event we are hosting on Saturday, one that we planned so carefully and wanted so much to go smoothly, hit a snag. We had a caterer nailed down, but she called to say that she could have the food ready, no problem. Unfortunately, she could not find anyone who would agree to serve and clean up afterward. Not a single soul in her large electronic Rolodex. Not for time-and-a-half. Not for double time. Not for anything.

So are the days of post-COVID back to normal? Unable to find workers at any price is one of many challenges. No reason to be upset at our fantastic caterer. She is having the same problem hundreds of others have.

My friend Sharon assured me she had a plan. Knowing how capable she is, I felt concerned but not distraught. I told her to call me back if she needed a second set of hands. I finished my walk and pulled out my cell phone to open the garage door.

Nothing happened.

The Whirring Circle of Despair.

The Computer Whirring Circle of Despair kept spinning, but the door did not open.

Lily looked up at me like “Staff! Open the door!”

Then, the spinning stopped altogether and said: check your Wi-Fi service.

Egad! I am paying more than $150 a month for the highest high-speed internet that Kinetic/Windstream offers, and it can’t pull a signal through my garage door?

I turned the phone off and restarted it. The Circle of Despair reappeared.

Like the catering issue, this is not good news but no reason to fly into a frenzy. I just so happened to have a key hidden in my yard.

Hang on to that key that doesn’t fit any lock.

Retrieving the key, I confidently went to the front door, slid the key into the lock, and turned. Or rather tried to turn. The key stubbornly remained in its original position and would not budge left or right.

How could the key that I retrieved from a zip-lock bag labeled: Front Door Keys not fit our front door?

On a couple of occasions, we had our house re-keyed. Some people might just toss the old keys in the trash, but not us. No, we can’t just throw away that carefully molded nickel, copper and brass trinket.

To understand this, one must realize that we are in Kentucky. Our state song is My Old Kentucky Home. One of the lines in the song is: “By and by hard times come a knocking at the door . . .”

So even though the old keys no longer fit our front door, and never will, there is every possibility of some future use, such as opening a mystery door when hard times come a-knocking.

That’s why my wonderful husband gathered up all the old keys and placed them for safekeeping in the zip lock bag. Labeled them Front Door Keys. Knowing how my husband is, a smart person might have tried the key before hiding it, but no. I didn’t.

Don’t call us child, we call you.

I sent a text to my cleaning man, asking if he was nearby and could let me in the house. He was in an adjoining county and could not come.

By this time Lily had gotten tangled up in the garden flags in my front yard at least three times, so we went to the back yard on the outside chance that I left the back door unlocked. Which I didn’t.

The only other times I have been locked out of my house or my car, I called Grott the Lock Doc. They always came right out. But now they must be having the same hiring problem as our caterer, because I got a recorded message that said all their service people are busy and I could leave a message or call back later.

My next idea was to call the people who recently installed my new garage doors, but unfortunately, my Wi-Fi service took another turn for the worse and its faint signal went out altogether. I could not even look up the phone number.

I texted my aunt, who is recovering from COVID, and asked her if she could look it up, but she said, “I’m feeling well enough to drive your door key over to you.”

So, an hour and 15 minutes later, I was in my house, using a key that my aunt had wrapped in a hand sanitizer-soaked paper towel.

On Deck with a Tech.

No longer could I put off calling Kinetic. As much as I dreaded the hassle of tech support, I had to get to the bottom of my internet issue. Step one. Go on their internet site and spend 15 minutes on Chat Support. I started as Customer number 18 and it took at least 15 minutes to become promoted to Customer number 1. Second, spend another 30 minutes online with a tech support person, who after doing some checking to make sure I was who I said I was, asked me to go upstairs and turn off my modem, which I obediently did.

Did this person not know that if I turned off the modem I would be disconnected from the internet?

Back on the chat for another 15 minutes, only to find out I am going to be advanced to a Tier 2 technician, who can’t talk on chat. She has to be called on the phone.

Another ten minutes waiting for the Tier 2 to come online. She runs tests. She asked me to describe my equipment. She asks which cables are plugged in where. She wants me to turn on and turn off anything that is running.

Finally, there is a deep sigh followed by silence.

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “What devices do you have running right now on your Wi-Fi service?”

“Well I have my iPhone in my hand right now and it’s running on Wi-Fi,” I said. “And of course, I have my laptop, my Hydro, my booster/route and my garage door.”

Another dramatic pause.

“OK, that is weird because I am looking at your connection. It is running perfectly, but it is not connecting to any device, including your cell phone.”

That’s when she asked me to look at my Settings.

“Look under Wi-Fi and tell me what it says you are connected to,” she said.

I told her.

Corpus delicti.

“Judy, I’m sorry to tell you but that’s not your Wi-Fi.”

She gave me the name and password of my real Wi-Fi and suddenly I was flying off the face of the Internet.

The mystery remains.

Whose service have I been pilfering? I’ve been using this Wi-Fi address for years!

Stay tuned. The Kinetic technician will be on-site Tuesday, as we unravel the caper of the purloined ping and the absconded-with access point.