Another Day, Feet of Clay

Alas, perhaps I spoke too soon when reveling in my new-internetness.

Oh, my new DISH satellite high-speed internet works like a charm, like a superstar, like a champ. But now, after the fact, after the telephone survey rating, I have discovered that my minivan-driving, plump, bearded, ginger of an installation technician hero has feet of clay.

Redbeard was polite. His vehicle was clearly marked with the DISH logo, although it looked like he simply slapped a rectangular magnet on the family minivan. He parked in the driveway and walked up on the porch to knock on the door. I gave him a tour of the current DISH TV satellite location at the end of the porch. I told him he could drive his van through the yard to that end of the house so his equipment was handy. Then Hick showed up dragging his hose (you how guys are always showing off, trying to assert their superiority) and advised Redbeard on where he could screw his DISH. The phone rang, so I went back in the house.

The twenty-eleven automated calls we had gotten from DISH over the two days prior to this installation advised us to "put up your pets so they don't come in contact with our technician." Um. Yeah. No way were we going to hide two-score-and-seven chickens, two guineas, a turkey, four cats, and two dogs from the technician. It's not like they're that non-hug-needing raccoon in ELF that attacks Buddy's face. Both dogs were on the porch when I talked to Redbeard, and neither showed an interest in him. He was like the Rodney Dangerfield of intruders.

My mom was on the phone, and while talking to her about something like her neighbor coming up behind her while she was bent over trimming the hedge, I heard both dogs baying like hounds after a fox. I considered ditching Mom to check on Redbeard, but...well...you don't cut your Mom short when she's talking on the phone. Then I heard Hick's Gator roar across the front yard like it was coming down the stretch on the final lap of a NASCAR event. The Backroads 500, perhaps. I figured that our fleabags had ripped a limb off Redbeard and Hick was rushing him to town for a re-attachment, or those dogs were simply excited as always by the mystery of the Gator, and were running after it on a new adventure.

Later I was filled in on the details of the afternoon. Redbeard screwed that internet DISH onto the side of the porch. Hick saw him getting ready to use giant wood screws about six inches long to attach that DISH to the 2 x 6 boards at the base of the porch. "Hey, buddy! Won't those stick out on the other side? Don't you have anything shorter?" Redbeard confessed that he did not. "I've got some over in my BARn. I'll go get them." So Hick had walked all the way around by the garage to get in his Gator and drive back across the yard to the BARn, when it was just as short for him to walk there and back to begin with. But at least the dogs got their hopes up for a longer run behind the Gator.

In two hours, Redbeard, Genius, and a little bit of Hick had run some CAT5 through the basement ceiling, and had my satellite installed and my internet up and running. Redbeard told Genius, "You'll get a call from DISH asking how I did. If you think I did a good job, please give me all ZERO ratings. That's the best. That's how I get contracted for jobs. The better my rating, the more work I get." Since the only issue had been Redbeard's screwing faux pas, I figured he deserved a good rating. After all, who answers the phone around here? Val. Rather than the next day, that survey call came a couple hours later. I gave Redbeard a ZERO in every category.

It wasn't until the next day that the true nature of Redbeard was revealed.

The Pony was the first to know. "Hey, Dad. I got in the pool today, and I saw that the gutter is smashed." Hick went out the basement door to inspect.

"Huh. I saw Redbeard slip off his ladder once. The whole thing slid sideways. He bumped the downspout, with the ladder, but he was on the bottom rung and jumped off. Looks like he hit it again. The whole elbow is smashed. The two pieces that make the 90 degrees at the bottom. It's only about five dollars worth of guttering, but it's the idea. He could of at least told somebody that he smashed it."

That crafty Redbeard. The length people go to, the depths to which they stoop, in order to garner a ZERO rating. I don't know how he can strap his kids into that minivan with a clear conscience, knowing what he did.