Comcastic.

The Earth has traveled around the sun thirty times since the last time our cable was operational.

NFL opening day has come and gone, in fact the season is 1/4 over. We've missed premiere week after premiere week and have been forced to spend heaps of time participating in useless rituals like reading books and taking long walks around the lake.

Here's a brief rundown of Comcast related events:

• Cable goes out on Friday, August 31.
  
• Call placed to Comcast for service.
  
• First possible appointment scheduled, for Labor Day, Monday, September 3rd.
  
• September 2nd.
  
• Cable's been out for 3 days.
  
• Receive a call from Comcast to confirm tomorrow's appointment.
• Monday, September 3rd.
  
• Cable's been out for four days.
  
• Wait all day for Comcast.
• Comcast does not show up.
• Call to discuss events and am told by Comcast that the appointment was canceled.
• Due to a "known problem in the area".
• And that it is their policy to cancel appointments without contacting the appointee.
• Even after confirming the appointment.
• Requested to be contacted by a supervisor.
  
• Scheduled another service appointment.
  

Ok, I grow tired of the bullet points. The short version is that 8 appointments later (5 of which were attended by a Comcast representative, the others --just us) and with little thanks to Comcast, the cable is back on. A supervisor never called --wait, that's not entirely true; some one named Taquila called and claimed to be a supervisor but she was, tops, 16 and cracking her gum over the phone. The most recent Big Winner to come out said the problem was the cable box, and added that this is "not unusual". Though impressed with his use of a double negative, I was further thrown by his telling of how returned cable boxes, whether the customer has had it in their possession for 10 years or 2, whether they've urinated on it or treated it as a hacky sack and covered it in peanut butter or not, Comcast just slaps some shrinkwrap on it and redistributes to the next unsuspecting sheep client. The Big Winner also decided, possibly based on the two laptops in residence, that I was some kind of super hacker and repeatedly asked me questions about my subversive actions and how he could "please, please join the underbelly".

And with that, I'm over my bullet reluctance. All told, for the honor of watching Dexter and Shark tonight, we spent:

• 6 hours on hold (towards the end there, I just placed the call then took a shower)
  
• 33 daytime minutes due to Comcast's automated confirmation calls and follow up surveys
  
• and a grand total of (seriously, not exaggerating here) 24 hours waiting for Comcast to show up.
  

If Dex doesn't kill someone soon, I might.