"The Good Wife"

I am still in denial and shocked over Will’s death in the “The Good Wife” that aired last Sunday (March 23, 2014). I’ve been in mourning for the past week about the death of a character in a T.V. show. How pathetic is that?  

‘The Good Wife’ runs on Sunday nights and I record it on DVR and I watch it on Tuesday evening when Mary’s at class. So for the first 48 hours after the show’s airing, I was not aware of the death of one of the show’s main characters. Ignorance is bliss. But the past few hours I’ve been walking around the house doing chores and saying “They killed off Will” and “Will is dead.”

The co-creators of “The Good Wife” were in a dilemma when one of their original actors, Josh Charles, who plays Will, decided to leave the show for greener pastures. Will’s sudden and unexpected demise during the last 20 minutes of the episode, caught loyal viewers completely off guard. These outraged fans went online to voice their hurt over the loss of Will.  And their continuing outrage caused the co-creators of the show to write an open letter to the fans explaining why killing Will off was the best option for their continuing story line.

When the series started in 2009, Alicia’s husband, Peter, who just happens to be the District Attorney at the time, cheats on her by sleeping with a prostitute.  So the first show of the series has Alicia standing by her husband during the press conference portraying “The Good Wife.” Alicia needs a job since she has left Peter and ends up at Will’s firm. While working together, the chemistry between Alicia and Will grows into a very complicated relationship. By the way, did I mention that Will is Alicia’s boss?

This season, Alicia leaves the law firm and starts her own. Will views this as a form of betrayal and he goes after Alicia and does all he can do to make her new firm fail. So begins their cat and mouse game of proving who is the better lawyer using all sorts of underhanded tricks. But when Will dies, everything changes for Alicia.

On Sunday night, one of Will’s clients loses it in the court room, grabs an officer’s gun and randomly shoots people. Will is hit by a stray bullet and bleeds out. One of the sadder moments is when his client is seen sitting nearby with the gun under his chin clicking the trigger over and over again because he has run out of bullets. The other sad moment was a shot of someone’s foot with a brown shoe and the other with just a sock on it and a trail of blood (which was Will’s).  I watched the ending of the show twice to understand that his character was gone forever.

The good news is Will is reappearing in some flashbacks for the next couple of episodes. When I think of Alicia paired with someone, it will always be Will. I can’t image anyone else.

I always envisioned that when the series finally ends there would be a scene where Alicia and Will are walking hand in hand into the sunset and they live happily ever after. We all know that only happens in T.V. or the movies. Alicia and I are both heartbroken and it will take some time for us to realize that Will is never coming back to be her friend, lover, or even her adversary. And, Will was my all time favorite "bad boy."

Where Has All the Customer Service Gone?

Mary and I joined the 21^st century when we recently decided to get wi-fi through Xfinity . While reading the instructions, it mentioned that a backup battery should be installed. We didn’t see the battery and we spent a lot of time looking for it in the box, and looking for it in the trash as well, and just couldn’t find it. Mary called them. They informed her that the battery did not come with the wi-fi box and that we would have to purchase it for a mere $45 through the Xfinity Voice Battery Backup line.

Mary goes ahead and orders the battery. When it arrived, she installed it and nothing happened. The battery just wouldn’t charge. The green battery light never appeared as mentioned in the instructions. Two months fly by and I finally get around to calling Xfinity Customer Service.

After making three phone calls and speaking to four individuals, I truly believe that Comcast’s customer support staff originated from the spawn of Beelzebub!

In my first phone call, I explained about the battery situation and that the green light was not appearing on the front of the box which meant that the battery was not charging properly. At this point, the Customer Service Rep would not continue the conversation until I gave her the serial number. She told me it was located on the front of the box. Wrong. It was on the back of the box, and due to the short cables, it was hard for me to turn it around to read the numbers. I had to move both a chair and a lamp and then scoot the desk out from the wall to get to the back of the box.

I finally read off a long series of numbers to her and then she asks me why I was calling. This is when I had a true Juan Pablo moment - he’s the rude guy on The Bachelor who chided the host for interrupting him. I interrupted her and said, “You are not listening to me. I told you in the beginning of this conversation what the problem was.” She said, “Sorry...I can’t hear you and you should call back to the Xfinity Voice Battery Backup line” and then she hung up on me.

I immediately called back and person #2 kept me on the phone for a total of 12 minutes with many minutes of silence between each question he asked me. I had to say on two occasions “Are you still there?” because all I could hear was background noise of people talking. He finally came back on the line and said, “We will send out a new battery.” Yeah!!! I was then informed that I would have to personally return the first battery to the nearest Comcast store. For us, the closest one to us is 45 minutes away which does not make me jump up and down with joy about returning it.

My third call of the day…I’m looking at my notes and I realize that the battery is called the “voice battery backup” and I wanted to be sure that I really needed a battery for the wi-fi since I wasn’t using the phone jack on it for our phone service. Person #3 told me the battery was only for the phone and that it wasn’t meant as a backup for the wi-fi if the power goes out. At this point I’m so frustrated that I’m making strange sounds instead of intelligible words (I was envisioning practicing my high dive off the nearest cliff). Then she said, “I’m transferring you to our technical service department.”  

This is just getting better by the minute. I spoke to person #4 and explained the entire battery situation again and that the woman I just spoke to informed me that the battery was only for the phone service and not for our wi-fi if we lost power. Person #4 said the battery was for both the phone and wi-fi t if here is a power outage. Why didn’t the previous person know that? Aren’t they given any training???

His next comment was priceless - he informed me that we must have installed the battery incorrectly. I took a very deep breath and said, “Well if this second battery that is being mailed to us doesn’t work, I will call back for instructions about how to install a battery.” Because at that point all I wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs at this individual that I felt that the entire Xfinity Voice Battery Backup staff was a bunch of untrained idiots, but for a change I kept my mouth shut. I thanked him politely for his helpful assistance and wished him a nice night and hung up.

I now have bruises on my forehead from hitting my head repeatedly on the kitchen table after this last conversation. All I can say is that second battery better work or mayhem will ensue.

Until the next time…

Update: The second battery was the wrong size. The only reason I cared about having a battery was the instructions said to “install the backup battery.” Word to the wise – don’t always rely on instructions as whoever is writing them may not know what they are talking about.

My Morning so Far

My morning as of 8:15 a.m. 

·        Walked around the house and opened all the curtains

·        Made the bed

·        Made my coffee

·        Emptied the dishwasher of clean dishes. And, tried to find room for all of our coffee mugs. Why do we have this many mugs? Is it really necessary? I had to stack them on top of each other which I know is frown upon by management.

·        Ate a bowl of yogurt with some cereal thrown in for fiber

·        Folded a load of laundry

·        Put on a wash of towels

·        Put that load of towels in the dryer to dry

·        Emptied out the kitchen compost container into the container we take to our local dump on Saturdays.

·        Finally, drank my coffee

·        Emptied four wastepaper baskets into the kitchen trash can and took it to the outside trash can. Why do we have four wastepaper baskets plus the kitchen trash can?

·        Did poop patrol in the back and front yards. Some of it had frozen in the snow and I had to use a shovel to dig it out.

·        Put a 12-foot plastic flex-drain on one of the down spouts in case it rains today. Too much snow close up to the house so I wanted the water to drain away from the house and not into the house.

·        Fed the bunny – he got a large carrot (no greens because this wasn’t an organic carrot) and slices of cabbage. To put his food in the spot we normally put it, I had to move a lot of the hay that Mary had placed there. She was told that the bunny would use it in his nest and eat some of it as well. From what I can tell he is not a fan of hay.

·        And, now off to earning a living. I'm exhausted all ready and my day has only begun.