It started during the baseball playoffs, when one of the two channels showing the games was TBS, FIOS channel 552, and it would not come in on any of our three TV sets. I did all the self-correcting work prompted on my screen and, failing to access the station, I contacted FIOS. FIOS makes it relatively easy to get in touch with them. A phone call depends on how many hundreds are in line in front of you, but an on-line written “chat” can happen immediately. And it did.

The nice agent-man did all sorts of things. He gave me instructions, he took over my set, he ran many checks, he captured my phone’s camera so he could look around my house, and channel 552 got fixed. But he also told me my cable boxes were at least four generations old (I don’t know what that means under the concept of time, because we had received new ones within the last five years or so), and that he could send me the latest versions for no cost, and that in fact our monthly bill would be reduced by a few dollars. He asked if I wanted to get them. I asked if there was any possible downside. He said that there wasn’t. I asked if someone would come and set them up and he said they were to be self-installed and the instructions would be clear. The on-line chat lasted a little over 2 hours.

A few days later, I received a box via UPS. I put the box by the front door and looked at it for several days, and finally took a deep breath, opened everything up, found three little boxes, one big box, a lot of wires and some things I could not identify, and nothing that looked like clear instructions. I called Verizon once more and arranged to have a technician come out to help. The person I talked to said that the technician’s visit would probably cost me $99, but that it was up to the technician. The Verizon written confirmation said there would be no charge.

The technician came in a few days, and the installation took him almost two hours. He told me that many of the wires in the box were not needed and threw them out. He told me that one of our three televisions was too old for the new equipment, but that we could use our old equipment for that one, and he moved our old master cable box upstairs to our bedroom. There is no way that I (or anyone else) could have installed this new equipment by myself, although the technician told me that he had confidence in me, that I never would have given up in frustration and that I would eventually have done everything I needed to. I did not respond.

All seemed fine, but the next day, all of our TVs stopped working. I called the technician and he returned that day, and after conversing with the “home office”, told me that the problem was when he connected our old box to the upstairs TV, because he was told that our house could not use both the old and the newer systems at the same time. So he disconnected our upstairs TV, which is now of no value whatsoever, and will need to be replaced. That will happen one day – we hardly ever use the bedroom TV.

All seemed well (more or less) again until a week ago today (i.e., all was well for about 5 days). Last Sunday, I wanted to watch the Commanders game, and I discovered that channels 4 and 9 (or 504 and 509 in HD) were not working. I got the familiar “channel not available” sign with an “error message”, and again followed the on-screen instructions to no avail. I ignored the problem last week, which was a very busy week, and didn’t contact Verizon again until yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, for some reason, the Verizon phone lines were clear and I could actually speak with someone without a wait. She was a nice soft spoken lady and, if I had to guess, I would say she was sitting somewhere in Hanoi. We spoke for about an hour and a half and she ran test after test, and nothing helped and she finally said that she had done (working with her “technical people”) all she could do, that there might be a wiring problem, and she would send a technician out. She then told me that the first available date was November 19. I told her that was ridiculous. She said that she might be able to expedite it, and came back on the line and said that a technician would be able to come tomorrow (today is tomorrow) and that someone would call me today (yesterday was today) and give me a time. She gave me a long “call number”. I thanked her.

Ten minutes later, chaos struck and the entire cable system went out. While I could have patiently waited until tomorrow, I called back and got a very nice Verizon lady, who was clearly somewhere in the United States (in my mind, she was in Columbus, Ohio, which is the most American American city I know). She was properly sympathetic and looked at my account, saw everything that went on and said – you do not have an appointment for tomorrow. She said that all the first lady did was request that someone call me to set up an appointment, but that she did not herself set up an appointment, and that she must not understand how Verizon appointments work. She also told me that the idea that the next regular appointment would be the 19th was ridiculous, that if that was the truth, she would advise me to leave Verizon and find another way to watch TV.

I spent another hour or so on the phone with her, running some of the same tests, and some new ones, being given some new instructions on what buttons to push and so forth and, lo and behold, eventually the cable came on and looked fine. But….I still was not getting channels 4 and 9 (504 and 509). She told me she would set up an appointment. We settled on Tuesday morning between 8 and 9 p.m., and I got a new “call number”.

I also got a text confirmation from her, something I did not get from the Vietnamese Verizon lady. But I was now sitting with two call numbers, one telling me that someone would come on Sunday and one telling me that someone would come on Tuesday.

Then what happened? I got a new text from Verizon, telling me that someone would come on Monday. I didn’t know if this was the Sunday time being delayed, the Monday time being expedited, or a third appointment altogether. But I wouldn’t be home for a Monday appointment, so I responded to the text saying that I would be available Tuesday, but not Monday.

I received another text asking me about possible Tuesday times. I selected the same time as the appointment that I thought I already had on Tuesday, and told Verizon in my response that I thought I already had an appointment, and gave them the call number. They responded with “yes”, and told me they would be here Tuesday.

In the meantime, when I was talking yesterday afternoon to the second Verizon lady, she asked me why our long time account was not registered on line with a Username and Password. I told her I just had never thought I needed it on line, and she asked me if I knew that with a Username and Password, by going to TV.Verizon.com on a computer, or by downloading the FIOS app on our smart phones, we could watch any station on the FIOS platform on the computer or phones. I admit I had no idea this was possible (does everyone else know this?), and I set everything up and, lo and behold once again, it works.

This meant that even though channel 4 (504) does not work on our TVs, we could watch Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live on our computer last night (and – if we wanted to – even record it on the computer to watch later), and that, I think, this afternoon I can watch the Commanders game on the computer, even though I won’t be able to watch in on the TV. Who knew this was possible?

That’s it. That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.