What I wouldn't do for a tarp and a sledge hammer right about now...

[captain_slinky]

HIM: MY INTERNT ISn"T WORKING AND I THINK IT MUST BE BROKEN BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK!

ME: I'm sorry to hear that sir. Let me take a look from this end and I'll see what I can do for you. WHat is your address there, please?

HIM: Huh? Sure, it's, uh... one-two-seven one-hundred and -THE CABLE TV IS WORKING JUST FINE.

ME: That's fine, sir... could I just get your address?

HIM: Yeah, it's uh... one-two-se - I TRIED UNPLUGGING IT AND IT DIDN'T WORK THEN EITHER.

ME: I'm glad you tried that first. Let me check your address to see if there are any outages in your -

HIM: I UNPLUGGED IT FOR 20 MINUTES AND IT STILL DIDN'T WORK AND NOW IT'S STILL NOT WORKING AND I HAD IT UNPLUGGED FOR LIKE 20 MINUTES.

ME: I understand that, sir, I just need to -

HIM: THEY TOLD ME TO UNPLUG IT THE LAST TIME AND IT WORKED THEN, BUT NOW IT DIDN'T WORK AND I ALREADY TRIED THAT SO I KNOW IT'S NOT THAT.

It was 10 minutes of letting him shout at me over and over what he HAD done befrore I got his entire address out of him. And after that, unds up he wasn't UNPLUGGING the modem, but just pushing the little on/off button on the front.

This does not reset the modem. This puts the modem in to a "Standby" mode.

it should have been a 5-minute call, tops. Unplug modem, wait thirty-seconds, plug back in. But no matter what bit of information I requested from him, I was getting 147 bits of unrealted info along with it.