October, 2004 

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you might remember that a little over a year ago I went to California for a week on a business trip. While I was gone, my wife went shopping with the kids and came home with a puppy. To make a long story short: He’s a pug and his name is Jack. (I call him “Pugsly” but nobody gets it – and I thought it was so obvious.)

Well, wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that pugs have a genetic tendency to have ‘issues’. Much like German Shepherds have bad hips, Pugs tend to be – what’s the word I’m looking for here? – um, “nuts”.

Have you seen the commercial on TV where the guy is chasing a Pug all over town and the dog is zipping in and out of stores and zooming up and down the escalator? OK. Now, imagine that that is in slow motion and speed it up about 10 times and you’ll have an approximation of the speed a Pug can attain once it gets moving.

Oddly enough, when they aren’t running around at full throttle, they spend the majority of their time lounging around on the back of the couch. Jack has perfected this technique to such a degree that he makes Garfield look like a personal fitness trainer by comparison. As it turns out, buying a Pug is extremely economical since it’s like getting two animals – a sloth and a cheetah - for the price of one.

Well, “economical” isn’t quite the right word since Pugs also have another trait where they have problems with their legs that require surgery that isn’t covered by your regular medical insurance. (Tip: When buying a Pug, buy 2 or 3 so you’ll have a spare in case one requires surgery.)

I’m kidding, of course, but he DID need to have surgery to correct a knee-cap that kept popping out of place. We had noticed him limping a little when coming out of ‘sloth’ mode but had discounted it since he didn’t seem to have any problem at all once he reached full ‘cheetah’ speed.

Fortunately, I took him to see Dr. Campbell over in Medley and he was able to diagnose and correct the problem. As an added bonus, Jack now has a really cool scar on his leg (complete with staples) for Halloween! Seriously, they have a wonderful practice over there and I recommend them highly. Dr. Campbell even took the time to personally call me after the surgery was complete to give me Jack’s status and the office staff called me before 9:15 the following morning when he was ready to come home. (Jack, not Dr. Campbell!)

While Jack came out of surgery without any ill effects, the same cannot be said for my telephone service. On Wednesday, FPL replaced a utility pole near our house. During this process, ComCast replaced the cable that ran from that pole to the one that connects to our house. Unfortunately, after re-connecting it, our telephones didn’t work. (The Cable and Internet came right back.) I reported the outage to ComCast – via Cell Phone – and was assured that a technician would contact me within 24-48 hours. (Don’t laugh – that’s what they said.)

I’m sure you can see where this is going – by Saturday we still had no telephone service and nobody had called me on my cell phone. We called ComCast again (for the fourth time) and complained our way to the supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor. She was finally able to determine that nobody had opened a ticket in the first place and that they would have a technician at our house between 9 and 1 on Sunday. (The previous person had told us that they don’t do house calls on weekends.)

I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, the guess whether he arrived close to 9 or closer to 1, but once he arrived I gave him the details of the situation and he had it resolved in less than 15 minutes. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “ComCast came out last Wednesday and replaced the cable from THAT pole to THAT pole. After that, our phones didn’t work but the TV and Internet did.”

ComCast tech (who is obviously a lot brighter than the people answering their phones): “I’ll be right back.”

(10 minutes later)

ComCast tech: “Chuck, your phones are now working. When they re-connected the cable they didn’t connect the AC power to your drop.”

I suppose all’s well that ends well. The phones are now back in working order and Jack is back to his old self and is once again perched atop the couch.