What do you do when the cable guy shows up?
Every time I've had a service guy come to the house, I'm always left wondering. What am I suppose to do with myself? If I stand around hovering over their shoulder, that's rude, right? But I need to be around for any questions they have, which they usually do.
This morning, I had just made my first cup of coffee for the day, and peaked out the front to see if anyone was out there. With amazing timing, the Comcast van pulls up. (I know, it's like a magical fairy tale.) I stand awkwardly in the hallway while he parks thinkinging, Is it creepy to be standing in the doorway? I decide I don't want to make him nervous, like I'd been staring out the window for two hours wondering where my service tech was--because I swear I wasn't.
Instead, I leave the storm door open and head back upstairs with all the doors open like a trail of breadcrumbs leading him into the den. ('Cause that can't possibly be creepy.)
In an effort to make it look like we don't disrobe in our computer/dining room, I start clearing off the table, putting things back in their places. (This is how you know I wasn't waiting attentively for two hours.) After the tech finishes his paperwork in the van and tentatively makes his way up the stairs to our apartment, I peak around the corner and say, "Come on in," holding my coffee cup hoping to appear nonchalant.
He asks the big question, something like what's going on, but all I can think is: Isn't there a mile long report on this? Where the heck do I start? So I start pointing at things and telling him what my husband did, the fact that he use to be a cable tech, yada yada, all the wiring's run upstairs in the attic, and we've burned out two small cable boxes in three days. Is that it? Nope.
Over the course of an hour, the tech is checking a few things that my husband was hoping he'd check that I forgot to mention. Good thing they sent a competent tech, runs through my head. Meanwhile, I'm on my third cup of coffee, the dishes are all put away, I'm ready to make a gallon of tea, and my paperwork is all layed out for when he leaves. Nervous? I'm not nervous. This is what everyone does when they don't want to just stand around looking stupid, right? Sure.
So, after checking every level and line known to man and giving us an awesome cable box bigger than my face, he tells me everything inside is all set. The line outside is weak, but they'll have a guy out here within the next 24 hours or so to fix the line outside.
I give him a big thank you, but can't shake his hand 'cause they're both full of equipment. Then, proceeded to follow him down the stairs to "lock my neighbors out" as I put it. Yeah, that was probably weird.
Twenty minutes later, I'm sitting here writing, nearly jittering off the kitchen chair, when I hear metal clattering outside. They can't possibly be here already, I think. So I amble to the front porch to peer out through the screen and sure enough, the guy never left. The man's outside up on a later across the street fixing our line. It's a good thing he excused himself already, otherwise I'd probably try to hug him.
Slinking back, hoping he didn't see me, I go back to my last cup of coffee to finish my blog post. Does anyone else have no idea what to do with themselves when the service technicians show up?
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