Wild Dogs and Internet

After getting no real response to my queries about when we could expect to have the building properly wired for landline telephone service and DSL Internet, my friend Lola (most definitely NOT her real name) and I decided to go spend a ridiculous sum of money for pre-paid wireless broadband. We set off in Lola’s new Jeep for the Virgin Record store at Abu Dhabi Mall, me holding her GPS because she hasn’t figured out how to mount it to the dashboard yet. After parking woes and being sorely distracted by shiny computer gear in various stores, we left Virgin, wireless router for me, wireless USB for her, in hand. We were so happy. It was bound to end badly.

Lola hadn’t quite gotten our home address programmed into the GPS properly. Plus, detours confused the machine, and we got a bit…side tracked. In fact, we overshot Musaffah, and headed out into the dark desert, otherwise known as The Road to Bani Yas. Or possibly Al Ain. Or maybe Dubai. Anyway, somewhere we Didn’t Want To Go. I asked once how much gas Lola had in her tank, but I may not have believed that a half a tank would get us home.

Eventually, we got turned around and headed back toward “civilization,” using Al Safeer “Mall” as our landmark. As we drove past this “mall,” something ran across the road in front of us. “What was that?” we both screamed. I looked to the side of the road where it had gone, and saw a pack of four or five wild dogs. Yes. Wild dogs. Dogs that were wild, in a pack. About two blocks from our building. (I must remember to warn folks not to let their kids wander more than, oh, a foot from their sides.)

So after all that excitement, including both of us shouting “Wild dogs!?!” at random intervals for several hours, our expensive new equipment didn’t work. Even though we stayed up until 2:00 am trying to make it work. This morning, we called on our resident tech guru and all-around good guy, Ptolemy (also, not his real name), for help. After three hours, we determined that the problem was that Etisalat, the state telephone and Internet provider, had made a mistake when setting up both of our accounts, and that we would need to go to an Etisalat business center. By the time we found some semi-addresses for some ostensible business centers, it was 12:30. The ones that were even open on Saturday all closed at 1:00. Not good. Armed with laptops, cables, routers, USB ports, and other techie accoutrements, me holding the GPS again and lighting Lola's cigarettes for her, and yeah, maybe taking a couple of drags because, my god, wild dogs! and no internet!, we set off into, you guessed it, the desert. Again. When we finally by some unverified miracle found the business office, it was 1:05 pm. It had been open. Until 1:00 pm.

We are still without Internet.

Oh, and I still don’t have Torchwood DVDs I ordered from Barnes and Noble on September 16.

I’m not really very happy right now. On the good side, though, no wild dogs today, so, hey!

To be continued…