Good Morning Internet

Look, Com­cast, we need to talk.

It’s been a wild few years. I invited you into my home at a time when I lived in a small base­ment stu­dio apart­ment and needed Inter­net access. I had been with DSL for a few months, but we both knew I was just set­tling. You promised me more chan­nels than I had ever seen in one place, many in star­tling, breath­tak­ing clar­ity. I ditched Ver­i­zon and signed up with you and your attrac­tive pro­mo­tional rate.

I was so naïve back then.

Let’s face the facts. I tried to love your dig­i­tal cable ser­vice. I pre­tended not to care when the Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel dropped out, some­times for days, even when you tried to blame it on me.

Maybe I should have lis­tened to my friends. They tried to warn me about you, but I couldn’t resist the way you streamed Net­flix in HD.

Over the course of our rela­tion­ship, you sent me five faulty cable boxes. Five! Who does that? When­ever some­one came to swap equip­ment, you charged me thirty bucks. It should have only taken me two or three ser­vice appoint­ments to real­ize you had no respect for me.

Also, your embar­rass­ingly out-of-date user inter­face should have been a major red flag.

Oh, remem­ber when I moved to a new apart­ment in a dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hood? You acted like you didn’t even know me and raised my rates with­out warn­ing. Sure, I tried to call and talk to you about it, but you put me on hold. For over an hour. I believed you when you said my call was impor­tant to you, but now I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong, we had some great times, too! You still have the fastest broad­band in the city. Remem­ber all those movie trailer down­loads? The hours spent play­ing Xbox? The HD movie rentals? They wouldn’t have been the same with­out you. And you have a great crew of peo­ple on Twit­ter cov­er­ing for you.

I’m a dif­fer­ent per­son now. Insanely fast down­stream used to be enough for me, but now I need some­thing more. I need reli­a­bil­ity and con­sis­tency. I need to know my rates won’t change arbi­trar­ily. I need some­one I can count on for Inter­net access with­out always try­ing to turn it into a Triple Play.

I’d ask you to please not call with your “spe­cial offers”, and I’d ask you to not mail me glossy ads of happy-looking peo­ple enjoy­ing your ser­vices. But I know you’ll do those things anyway.

I’m box­ing up your things, and I’ll drop them by your office on my way home from work. Hope­fully, we can end this with civil­ity and with­out mak­ing a scene.

But if you charge me with a “Break-Up Fee”, I’m call­ing the police.

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Good news: I found the cul­prit: a downed tree branch behind my apart­ment which cut the cable to my building.

Bad news: The alley behind my build­ing hasn’t been touched and most likely won’t be any time soon, unless Com­cast has vans that can drive through two feet of snow.

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At the end of July, the morn­ing after my friend Krafty’s bach­e­lor party, I decided to move out of my Mt. Ver­non stu­dio apart­ment. Six days later, I signed a lease on my new Ham­p­den apartment.

Unfor­tu­nately, it’s almost Sep­tem­ber and I haven’t found some­one to take over my old lease. I have five days to get every­thing trans­ferred before I need to pay rent on an empty apartment.

I’ve shown it to five peo­ple so far, and a sixth is com­ing tonight.

I’m get­ting really ner­vous and stressed over this. I’m not sure I can afford two rents for another month. Still, I love my new place and most every­thing about it, but the inabil­ity to shed this old place is start­ing to keep me up at night.

I just re-posted my Craigslist ad. Surely some­one needs to move into a place Sep­tem­ber 1st. Right?

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My Refrig­er­a­tor — Before the Shop­ping Trip

Until very recently, I had been liv­ing some­thing of a cliche in my apart­ment. That is to say, the inte­rior of my my refrig­er­a­tor looked as if it had been tended to by a bach­e­lor who lives in a stu­dio apart­ment. It looked that way not just because that is exactly the case, but also because I’d got­ten quite lazy about gro­cery shop­ping. I ordered Chi­nese take-out, picked up sand­wiches from Never on Sun­day, or picked up pizza from Iggies for most meals. Break­fast would include a trip to Donna’s for cof­fee, and that’s mostly because some­thing was grow­ing in my cof­fee pot. The dishes sit­u­a­tion was a dis­as­ter wor­thy of its own post at a later date.

Hot off the heels of a pay­day, I made an exten­sive shop­ping list–for the first time I could remember–and headed off to the gro­cery store. I was proud of myself by the time I reached the check-out counter. My cart was stuffed to the brim with gro­ceries, and not just junk food. I had fruit, veg­eta­bles, meat, cheese, juice, milk, a few snacks, some frozen piz­zas, and var­i­ous other stuff for around the kitchen.

At the check-out counter, the cashier gave me a know­ing look. “Are you mov­ing into a new place?” she asked.

I was sud­denly and over­whelm­ingly embar­rassed. Before I real­ized I was speak­ing, a lie came out of my mouth. “I’ve been out of town for a while.” She nod­ded at me, not believ­ing, car­ing, or both. I was then even more embar­rassed that I had tried so fee­bly to lie about some exotic out-of-town adven­ture that caused me to sud­denly need every kind of food the store had to offer.

$150 later, I unloaded my bags in my refrig­er­a­tor. As you can see from the photo below, I now have the kind of refrig­er­a­tor you would expect a grown-up to have. I promised myself I won’t wait until I’m down to condi­ments before the next trip.

My Refrig­er­a­tor — After the Shop­ping Trip

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