Oh, my nerves.

Welcome to Gremlin Central, AKA my house. Mark and I have been trying to switch over from AOL DSL to Verizon DSL, and it's been an immense headache from Thursday until now. What's worse, the problems are STILL not resolved.

To make a lonnnng story less long: Mark got notified via e-mail on Thursday that the DSL service was set up. On Thursday night, he went to hook up the DSL modem that was sent to us by Verizon and install the software.

No dice. It wouldn't connect. He spent the entire evening on the phone with customer support. Nothing they suggested worked.

Friday night, after the Phantoms game, was more of the same... Mark spent God-knows-how-long on the phone with tech support, and the DSL connection still wasn't working.

Saturday, while I went to the Deaf Worldwide Expo with Karla, Joe J, Joe's mom Jean, Edie, and Jay, Mark remained home and made still MORE support calls. I think so far he's spoken with tech support from Verizon, Microsoft, AND Sony (the computer manufacturer). No luck.

Sunday evening, Karla and I went to the Phantoms game. Meanwhile, Karla's husband Al came over to our house and worked with Mark to try and troubleshoot. The guys finally reached the conclusion that the DSL service was never switched on by Verizon.

I swear, Mark is the only competent person who works for that freaking company! HOW THE HECK do they remember to send out an e-mail notification that the DSL service is ready, but FORGET to turn the actual service on? Arrrrrgh...

Now it's Monday. Mark called them during the workday to report what he and Al determined last night. They wanted Mark to call back from home in the evening. Fine. He did. In fact, since he got home from work before I did (which normally is not the case), he was on the phone with Verizon tech support when I arrived.

By the time I got home, the numbskull tech support person had told Mark to uninstall AOL from our computer. I want to know what in the BLEEP the AOL software had to do with anything, and why the nitwit from tech support suggested uninstalling it in the first place! But unfortunately, it was already uninstalled by the time I got home. Mark showed me where the AOL folders were saved before he removed it, but I have no idea if my favorite places are in there among the saved stuff. I fear that my entire "favorite places" list is gone, not to mention I might have to get creative in tracking down how to RESTORE the saved stuff once AOL is reinstalled on the computer.

Which, by the way, it's not put back on there yet. I am considering leaving it off the machine until the DSL is set up. That way, some other tech support moron can't suggest uninstalling it yet again.

I think I'd like to ask around amongst my list of favorite goalies, and see if any of them would like to get some frustrations out by cross-checking some sense into some tech support personnel. The goalie will feel better, and *I* certainly will feel better.

I sure hope the next thing I post involves commenting that we actually have the DSL up and running. I'm so fed up with all these problems.