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Well into yesterday, 08 November, I heard from my new pal "Max" from my "Computer Technical Sup-pote" which I never knew I had contracted. There was no fright story canned preamble or transfer chime, just ol' Max waiting for me to make a sound before speaking. Typical for the call type, call center chatter filled the background and Max was straining to recite his script in a South Asian accent.

He was very eager to correct my "Vin-doze computer" and its nasty habit of spewing pesky "errrr-or messages" before my whole machine could implode under the strain. Nothing here was even turned on, yet Max sounded certain that he was tracking my serious undefined problem in real time. Since I own multiple systems both recent and vintage, I asked which MAC address he was flagging. That detail somehow eluded him, and he insisted it's my "Vin-doze computer". I asked which one. I was assured that if I'd only "turn on any of them", suspicious traffic across my entire network could be found. My, how the terror was mounting.

I posited that he was just guessing now. He sounded personally wounded in his denial. Then began a brief lecture in network troubleshooting, based no doubt on his hard years of experience sweating over a hot soldering iron. His confidence was almost as high as the guy I once worked for who had designed and built entire racks of networking hardware for a defense contractor shortly before the public was invited to the World Wide Web. "All yoh computah connected with same net-woouk", Max began in a pained tone. "If anything happen with, in one compu-terrrr", he continued and paused for a second of drama, "it's happening all. It's a net-woouk problem, sir."

With the issue now thoroughly and specifically defined, I was again prodded to "tuhn on any of" my systems so we could get to work. But we had a bigger problem, I countered. Not fibbing here, I'm a subscriber to more than one ISP. "In fact it's not the same network for all systems here", I explained in my own firmly patient manner, further describing how the networks are "siloed" and don't share resources. Well, Max sounded stumped for the first time and made some "hmms". I pressed on with my own concerns as he struggled to get in any more sage words edgewise. I said we need more to go on than his proposed hit-miss operation. Abruptly my friend Max did what any seasoned certified technician would do with a thorny problem and toss a hissy fit. He hollered at me to "HEY YOU just shuddup!"

Two seconds later the line was dead, and so apparently was my chance at ever resolving my runaway system meltdown, which Max and his crack team would happily bestow on the "computah" of my choosing if I didn't already have one in progress. Well, I'm sure I'll get another spin at the wheel in a few weeks when his office mates or one of their many competitors in Gujarat Province or someplace else decide to call again with their grease pit fire alerts. Oh, gosh, I never got this fine company's name from Max, but then he never offered one.

Wow, what a "helpful" guy Max was.