Having ascertained you are hosting the sub-species Gremlin Edo-Manduco-Interneto (loosely translated – Gremlin Eat Chew Internet), you may now use the following Idiots Guide to Gremlin Training to tame the beast.
Gremlin in Halloween Costume. I wouldn’t really have thought it necessary!
Step 1 – contact “mobile company”. Inform them you have absolutely no internet connection. Plead with them, as you have lost weeks of work. DO NOT tell them your major concern is a lack of blogging ability (they will not take you seriously. Lie blatantly if required).
Step 2 – follow gazillions of pointless directions from call desk operator. You have tried these routes. They Do Not work! But, in the interest of humanity, give the guy a chance to feel like he is useful. Complete call knowing you have achieved nothing!
Note: You may skip points one and two as they are utterly pointless!
Step 3 – get hubby to contact “mobile company”. Leave premises! This is going to be ugly.
Step 4 – receive call from “mobile company”. Call should go as follows:
“Hello, my name is “S”, are you going to shout at me?”
Me “I left that up to my husband. I just want some internet connection.”
S “I’m sorry, I don’t seem to be able to hear you”
Me “That’s because there is no network reception!”
S “I still can’t hear you. You seem to be breaking up.” No lies dude!
Me “Exactly! It’s because I HAVE NO RECEPTION!” I might just be shouting at this point but he can’t hear me so it doesn’t count.
S “Do you have a landline I could phone you on?”
Me – provides landline number
Step 5 – receive call from “mobile company” on your landline?!?
S “Oh, that’s much better. I can hear you now”
Me “Yes! Are you beginning to understand my problem?”
S – very nervous giggle. “We are going to organize a booster for you”
Me “Fantastic. When I can get this?”
S “This may take some time. There are many procedures to go through”
Me “Brilliant. I shall forgo all work for an indefinite period whilst you go through your procedures!”
S “Thank you for your understanding. Have a good day.”
What?? “Have a good day” when my arms and legs have been viciously mauled by a Gremlin and I am now a rolly polly hopeless body of blub?
Step 6 – wait a minimum of a week for urgent booster installation. Hmm, the joys of Africa!
That completes our in-depth study of Gremlin Behaviour and Training Techniques. We’re Back!
Now for the catch-up! Wish me luck.
Long Life Cats and Dogs 
OMD what an adventure!!! I will cross my paws for you!!! Give those Gremlins a kick!
Gremlins officially kicked! Finally got reception (although I then immediately went out for dinner – so that didn’t help with catching up). Gave the thing a hefty boot – just hope it doesn’t land up anywhere near you guys!
What a relief! Seems your gremlin is going about willy nilly with some of the others, poor dears 😦 So, you have to do all your internet ‘stuff’ over the mobile network in SA? Ouch!
I can’t even begin to tell you how good it feels to have proper reception finally. I feel like a whole person again!
In fairness, we don’t Have to do all our internet stuff on mobile networks but it had been our choice, due to the fact that we need to be able to move with our PC’s. Our choice of provider could definitely have been better, though (well, maybe not, they are probably all much the same). Anyway, Gremlin kicked to the door. Yippee! 🙂
My paws are crossed for you too!
Thanks Clowie. The Gremlin is now officially trained (I hope) but the catch up is going to take a while. So many comments to reply to, so little time. Didn’t help that I immediately went out for dinner after getting reception! 😀
Hey Lady Litchi, Hey Boks, Jet here. Hi Miss Susan.
Welcome back! Sounds like Mom’s conversations with a variety of providers here, too. We think you should be a Gremlin for Halloween!
Hi Jetty, glad to hear I’m not the only one having absurd conversations with providers. Good news is that we are back on line now. Bad news is the amount of catching up I have to do.
Gremlin for Halloween is definitely the way to go. They are most certainly the scariest little critters I’ve come across in quite some time 😀
Oh Dog, They must get this sorted soon..Hubby’s got connection, why haven’t you?? This has been weeks and they sound a bunch of idiots at the mobile company…xx00xx
Mollie and Alfie
Hmmm – couldn’t really have put it better than that 😀
Problem is, however, finally solved. I’m back on line – YIPPEE!!!
PS – received Litchi’s treaties today! Fantastic. Thank you! She LOVES them. Going quite mad to get at all of them in one go. I’ll do a post tomorrow so you can see.
Gee…..after the past couple of weeks, I should think you deserve to have a NICE QUIET REST OF YOUR LIFE! You’ve had enough frustration to last a while – am I right???
Pam (and Sam)
Love that! – A nice quiet rest of my life! What a wonderful way to put it. Just laughing as I reply :D. It has certainly been a most frustrating time but the relief now, being back on line, is wonderful!
BOl funny. We are coming over to have a Gremlin eating Fest. My peeps once secretly got hold of the CEO’s secretarys’ direct line. BOL she’d been sucking on lemons all her life and peeps let rip. Wowzer problem fixed. Peeps was dissapointed as she was looking forward to the next call. Could have been fun! Hey ho.
Have a wonderful Wednesday.
Best wishes Molly
There’s one brilliant idea – a Gremlin eating fest! Think I’ll have to put that one together. Might just end up as much fun as your Peeps mischief! Sounds hilarious. Think you should give us a post on that 😀
We hope your gremlin relief is a lasting one…nothing more frustrating. Especially for those of us that have very impawtent stuff to do on the web!
You said it! Impawtent stuff! That’s exactly what I was missing out on and they just couldn’t understand?!?! Can’t they see how Impawtent blogging is? 😀
Squirrel poop….that just sucks!! I will close my eyes and ‘will’ the Gremlins (and the idiots ~ sorry ‘call operators’) to die, die, DIE!!
My name is Ruby, I am at your service.
Kisses,
Ruby
Well Ruby, I am most honoured to hear that you are at my service. That is truly sweet. I would warn you, however, that sucking squirrel poop is probably not the nicest thing to do 😀
Seville is also Africa!
Things in here work as they do across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Have a good day and thank you for your patience.
Well, lets hope it will all stay working now. Cannot say I have ever had quite such a problem before and hopefully never again. Thank.you for your patience!
Are Gremlins a protected species?! You probably shouldn’t be kicking them! 😉
Mind you they are breaking the law by squating in your computermabob. Hmmm. A conundrum!
Whee are glad to have you back!
Nibbles, Nutty, Buddy & Basil
xxxx
Well, point taken, I guess – maybe I shouldn’t be kicking the Gremlin to the curb but, in fairness, it has messed up my life for 3 weeks now and they are most certainly NOT endangered or protected! 😀
Anyway, that needle-like fur tends to hurt like hell when you kick it. The Gremlin remains fine. Hurmph! 😀
Die, evil gremlins!! I would lick you to death if I could!
Love and licks,
Cupcake
Oh, careful there Cupcake, remember the needle sharp fur they have – wouldn’t want to go Licking that! 😀
Well, SOMETHING worked! 🙂
For your next lesson, Gremlin extermination methods? Preferably very painful and inhumane ones?
I may have looked into your suggested extermination methods but, it would seem, the Gremlin has departed. I’ll leave that study up to the next poor sod he visits 😀
Welcome back! I’ve missed you!
Thank you – that’s so sweet. I cannot even begin to tell you how good it feels to be back on line properly. Scary how lost I felt without proper connection. YIPPEE!! 😀 I’m Back!!!
Thank Goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Indeed! I’ve felt so incredibly lost without connection. Only just managed to miss the loony-bin visit 😀
I understand. My ex-laptop took its last gasp last December and it took me two weeks to get a new one, get the computer Doc to get it up and running and get all my pictures sorted out. I think my husband was worried I was going to have another meltdown. We keep a spare now.. 🙂 Welcome back!
So the booster worked? Excellent.
Finally, yes, the booster worked. Just loved their version of Urgent! 3 weeks later and I’m able to get connection 😀
We have one son travelling around Africa at the moment (with work) and Gremlins are even worse when you are on the move!
Son number one moves to Ethiopia next month so I hope you have rid the whole of Africa of Gremlins, but I suspect it is too big a job!
I do fear that ridding the entire continent of Gremlins would be slightly more work than I could handle. Hopefully I managed to scare them enough for them to move underground for a while though 😀
Is your son going to work in Ethiopia? I’m sure you must be quite sad, thinking of having both sons away from you.
Made me laugh because I used to work for a major communications company in customer service for business customers….it’s not that fun.
Shocking job, I should think. Especially if you ever got someone like my hubby on the other end of the line 😀
Yay!! Hope the gremlins stay away from now on
Oh I do hope so. Thanks Misaki – all your good thoughts (or bad ones, towards the Gremlin) have certainly helped!
Geez, what a mess! Hope that never happens again! 😉
If it ever happens again, I’m booking straight into the loony-bin, no questions asked 😀
You poor thing, you’ve certainly had your share of gremlin issues. Hope it’s resolved and you are good to go! Welcome back.
Thank you. Yes, good to go. Looks at this, comment, post, appear – it’s just brilliant!!!
Wow, what a gremlin festival you had. Hope its going to be ok now 🙂
Seems to be hanging in there. Definitely think I got the re-homing of Gremlin right finally!
Oh yeah!! I know this one well! Took me 2 hours, flat battery, huge phone bill due to calls being premium rate and permanently being put on hold, getting through to somone just as battery dies…switch to PAYG phone and use up all credit on it whilst repeating the on-hold scenario…and give up…hit laptop….scream abuse at mobile broadband stick…sit down quietly…drink tea…plug back into USB…connection! That was 1st time using replacement stick after I burned the other one out. This new one is usually better behaved 🙂
😀 I was well past the drinking tea option and full onto into bottles of wine. You were most definitely visited by the same sub-species of Gremlin. Hope your new stick continues working. Why, oh why, do we do these things to ourselves? 🙂
Our Lady once had them tell us that she could look the solution up on the internet. They didn’t understand how NOT having internet made this impossible. They don’t make life easy. We are glad we don’t have to deal with these things. Hailey and Phod
😀 Don’t you just LOVE call desk operators. Think my post may have landed up with a few expletives if I’d been told to go on the net to find a solution!
YOU ARE BACK!!!
Oh, the relief of it all. I feel like someone gave me back my arms and legs and am, finally, a fully functioning human again!
Ahem…koff, koff….let me just clear my throat…hack…there, that’s better. So about those Gremlins….ummmmm…they must have hopped a fast flight to Walnut Creek Calif. ‘Cuz they are….ahhhh…whispers behind paw…..they’re here…shhhhhhh. Don’t want them to hear me. Lets just say our tech move did not go as we’ll as our furniture move, K? Paw pats, Savvy
That’s terrible (keeping the whisper up). Don’t look them in the eye. If you make eye contact, they have you forever! Get a Gremlin Whisperer immediately! The longer they stay, the smarter and stronger they get. Would you like me to send one of our outstanding Call Center Operators over to help you. They can’t fix anything but at least they tell you to “have a good day” 😀
I love how you approached this grrrr moment…haha…I love it! Yes, now for the catch up…oh, dear. 😦
Great part 1 and 2 🙂
It was either humour or the loony-bin. As always, I decided to laugh about it. Much as I would probably get on very well with a bunch of mad people, I’d miss my animals too much 😀
I’m taking some hissing lessons to help you. Good luck!
Thanks – I think the hissing lessons worked. All up and running again.
Haha! This made me smile, sounds very familiar…. 😉
Having connection back, I can smile now but what a nightmare it was at the time. Glad you had a laugh.