You liar!

On June 11, 2005, I received a laptop as a graduation gift from my parents. It was beautiful--small size, good features (as much as I knew at least), and it even came with a free printer. Little did I know that just a few short weeks later it would be taken away from me forever.

When I received the computer, I can't say that I jumped up and down for joy. I was happy, of course, but as I am a graduating high school senior going on to college, it was not the most surprising gift. Besides, what else could be in two giant boxes? I was grateful, but my life wasn't changed from the experience. I guess I even took advantage of the fact that I had a perfectly working, brand-new laptop.

It seemed to work perfectly at first. My dad helped me to set it up, and although we had a few problems with the internet, we got it to work initially without too much hassle. But after a day or two we began having problems connecting to the internet. I would click on the browser only to see "Page Cannot Be Displayed," or some other intriguing message.

My dad would mess with it and scream at it, and I would watch...from a distance. But he couldn't figure it out. So, in the Bitter house, the answer is immediately "Call the support line!"--according to my dad at least. So my dad called the Dell support line in India and made a good friend named "Brandon". (We've decided that "Brandon" is definitely just his English name. He's probably really some Akar or something.) When I say "good friend," I'm not sure I really mean that. I suppose I should give a little background on the Bitter family--no Doug Bitter--and computer (or any technology for that matter) support lines.

My dad seems to have some obsessive thing about calling the support line as soon as something seems to not work in the smallest manner. He's just quite unpatient when it comes to technological problems. (I hope my dad doesn't read this. It's not that I don't respect him for trying to solve the problems. If it was just me, I would be lost.) He knows quite a bit about technological stuff, but, like I said, he's unpatient, and he refuses to have a professional (besides Indians) help him.

So, he gave good ol' "Brandon" a ring. My dad talked to him and other Indians forever. I guess I should really say "yelled at" them. They agreed that there was a conflict between the Norton Anti-Virus program and the internet, but they couldn't really solve it. So conversation number one ended.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed my internet-less computer. I listened to music, even had a new cd on iTunes already, and I sure enjoyed playing Hearts. But the internet didn't work. Then, one day I turned it on to realize that the internet was working. I enjoyed it--I could talk to friends on msn and look at homestarrunner. But I was stupid enough to turn it off. When I turned it on again, I was met with the fact that the internet didn't work once again.

So life continued like this. It was a gamble as to whether the internet would work at any given turn-on. So, of course, my dad gave good ol' "Brandon" another ring. When I say "Brandon," I really mean the entire Dell group as a whole. Anyone with experience in support lines knows that you hardly ever reach the same person twice, even if you try to get to him/her. I have to say that "Brandon" was kind enough to talk to my dad more than once. (I'm not sure why since my dad gets very unpatient very fast with computer support lines.) He also had the privilege of meeting "Daniel". I imagine he met others, too, but he was probably too mad at them to remember their names.

So, I'm not sure if it was this phone call or one of the many others, but for the blog's sake, let's pretend the following instance happened during this phone call. My dad was upstairs calling India toll-free, which seems to be one of his favorite activities of late. My mom, sister, and I were downstairs. We've learned to avoid him at all costs before, during, and after calls to India. We've also learned to ignore him yelling into the phone. But this time, we all heard him yelling, very distinctly, "You liar!"

We looked at each other, stifling laughs. My mom gathered the strength to yell up to my dad, asking if everything was ok. He said that he was mad because his Indian friend of the day had promised him that he would transfer my dad immediately to Department Whatever, but he never did. So my mom, sister, and I could rest somewhat assured that my dad wasn't yelling directly at the Indians, although I knew they had already had him on their bad list by then.

So this phone tag with India continued for a couple of weeks before my dad and a majority of Dell agreed that the computer was haunted and should be sent back.

So, a week or two after we sent it back my dad began having problems connecting to the internet on his own laptop. It was doing the same exact thing. Obviously, there was something wrong with our wireless network. Except...at the same time that my dad's computer originally stopped working Justin was over with his new laptop...which worked perfectly. We told him to get his computer away from our family as quickly as possible before it caught our disease, but as I understand, his still works.

But my dad's didn't. So, we went through the whole process again to fix the network as a whole. After days...weeks, he finally "fixed" it today. We also ordered me a new laptop today. So, the Bitter computer dilemmas are over. Yeah right.

Well, since this blog is more or less about my life, I figured that you all deserved to meet one of our great family friends, "Brandon". Coincidentally, my dad just received a flyer for an upcoming plastic surgery conference in India. I say we make it a family trip to visit "Brandon". And maybe "Daniel," too, to be fair.

Disclaimer: I'm not meaning to be racist by calling the technological help people all Indians. Most of them really are, and in Dell's case, they all really are. Trust me, I would know. My dad would give us an Indian weather report daily, straight from "Brandon". Also, as I tried to say earlier, I'm not meaning to say that my dad is always impatient and mad. Somehow, it just always seems to happen when a technological problem goes wrong at our house. Which is A LOT.