The Night Before the Morning After

After half-a-dozen conversations with at least three times as many people it seems that the phone will be connected tomorrow. I say "seems" because English is not the first language of anyone who connects the phone, the internet, or cable TV. All of the people I have spoken to use as many acronyms as words (none of which they can explain*), and they use words like "cable" in a their own unique way.** They also assume that every human being is as familiar with the internal structure of Telstra as they are. Mad. So, fingers crossed and cameras at the ready.

On a more positive note, I spoke to the owner of the house we have been renting for the last four years and managed—somehow—to sweet-talk him into selling us the original dinning room wall unit from this place, which we both love. I assured him that removing it would be a breeze. Now I get to find out if it is.


Also on a positive note, and in the same picture, we got this sensational copper zodiac plaque. it looks like it was made to go on ths unit, and it will be perfect for the shoebox.



*It is actually quite amusing to ask. "So what does BFS mean?" [ignores question] "You said the cable appointment had to be made with the BFS. Who are they? What does BFS stand for" [prolonged silence] "You don't know, do you?" [pause] "No."

** You might assume that "a cable" was any wire (phone, power, TV, internet) attached to the house, or that "Cable" was Cable TV. But no, cable refers only to your internet connection. If you work in a Tesltra call centre that is. I discovered this special meaning only after spending three-quarters of an hour trying to find out why I was told one minute that the phone was going to be connected in the morning and then told not five minutes later "the cable" was not, now, going to be connected until the end of the month. It turns out that phones do not have cables. Nor is "Cable TV" connected with a "cable." Who knew? I did ask what on earth they called the things that dangled from phone poles and that carried phone and TV signals into the house (and possums onto your roof) if they were not called "cables," but he couldn't answer that particular puzzler.