Carlos, My New Best Friend

This is really Part 2 of the High School Musical Extravaganza Post.

For you see, the party could not have happened had we not moved the large TV into the living room so that there were seats enough for all of us. For those unschooled in the fine technology of digital cable, when you unplug the cable box and then plug it back in, something happens to it.

Namely, it no longer works!

Especially when your over-eager (read impatient) husband turns it on before it's ready and then pushes many buttons in attempts to get it to work.

Enter: Carlos- Customer Service Rep from Time Warner Cable.

While the following may not be an exact transcript, it's close enough to get the picture:

C: "Time Warner Cable, this is Carlos, how may I help you?'
WM: "OK, we moved the TV and cable box for our HSM 2 party, which starts NOW I might add, and now have no reception!" (said very rapidly, and with slight hysteria).
C: "What did you do after you moved it?"
WM: "Plugged it in, and pushed like 30 buttons to try and re-set it. I swear, it wasn't me, it was the husband, but now we can't get any channels!"

**Now mind you, the previously mentioned 5 kids are running around in the background screaming "The TV's broke!! Fix it!! We can't watch the movie without it!! Daddy, what's wrong with the TV? Daddy, can I help? Uncle E, what ya doin' behind there?" , and various encouraging, low stress things like that! The husband is behind the TV, plugging and unplugging, with the remote, pushing buttons like it's going out of style-- very patiently as is his wont; while I ask him the answers to Carlos's questions and then relay the answers to him**

C: "OK Mrs. -----, tell your husband to step away from the TV, put down the remote, and DON"T TOUCH ANYTHING-- I'm resetting it from here." (I swear this is a direct quote)

After I relayed this distressing news to hubby, we were then instructed to wait until the system rest and the clock turned up on the box. By the way, this takes about 5 minutes, so I had nothing to do but have a conversation with Carlos-- I mean, who wants to just sit in silence on the phone together with a stranger-- let's make friends!

C: "So, you guys are having a party huh?"
WM: "Yup, we got pizza and cupcakes, 5 kids running around, and we're going to watch the first HSM now before the 2nd comes on. You can come over if you want." (Yeah, because I always invite complete strangers from the cable company to come hang out at my house!)
C: "You got wings with the pizza?"
WM:" No, not this time."
C:"I'm not coming then. " (Because apparently for Carlos, it just isn't a party without wings).

The conversation went on for a while, until the clock came back on and the cable reset. I can tell you Carlos is a nice guy and has 3 kids. He is such a big Buffalo Bills fan that he has an autographed picture with his baby and the current quarterback from training camp, and is going to the Miami/Buffalo game this year.

After the trauma was over and we had cable again, Carlos told me how to reset the box in the future when we need to move it again. And I thought that was all.... BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!