Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area

Yesterday (Friday, October 14, 2011) we had occasion to call Time Warner Cable, the supplier of our TV and Internet service.
Awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity......
Our cable-TV service is intermittently awful.
Occasionally the display of the local ABC affiliate is all snow.
This is not true of all channels, but the local NBC affiliate is often almost as bad.
A local affiliate of the local ABC affiliate has slight snow.
Other channels, e.g. the local CBS affiliate, look fine. Often the ABC affiliate looks fine too, but often it doesn’t.
So, call Time Warner Cable.
It looks like something may be wrong.
I’m more inclined to think it’s ABC’s feed to Time Warner, or Time Warner is mucking it up out here.
Since we never look at the 89 bazilyun other channels — Blood and Gore TV, Slaughtering Bambi, Junkyard Pit-Bull, etc. — we’re probably the only ones noticing a flaky ABC feed.
We got a machine, of course. Voice-recognition.
“Do you have an account?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Sorry, I didn’t understand your answer. Please say ‘yes’ or press one.”
“WHAAAA?” I punched one.
Onto the next step.
“Please state your problem.”
“Bad TV reception,” I said.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
Can I get it to stop?
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Ain’t technology wonderful?” I thought.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“That’s about the tenth time you said that,” I shrieked into the phone.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
Click.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
I gave up.
I hung up.
I wanted to go to the local YMCA to work out.
My wife returned from walking our dog at the park.
She would not accompany me to the YMCA.
“I tried to call Time Warner,” I said; “but got thrown into a loop.”
My wife would attempt to call Time Warner.
When I returned from the YMCA, I got her sorry story.
Same loop.
“Funny, I don’t see an outage in your area.”
She tried various voice-commands and phone-numbers, and each time got the same loop.
Finally she tried “I want to talk to a service-representative.”
Click; whirr........ “Please hold.”
After about a half-hour, a real human came on the line, the opposite of a loopy machine.
Time Warner will send a cable-guy.
“Any other issues?” the service-rep asked.
“Your answering-machine goes into a loop,” my wife said.
“We’ve heard about that. Perhaps I could save you some money on your phone-bill. —You should probably report that.”
“I’m reporting it,” my wife said.

• RE: “Out here.....” —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, about 20 miles southeast of Rochester.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away.)