Hopes are so sky high now that I’ll be devastated if the new fix for the Internet problem doesn’t work. This is like an oasis, or at least a roadside Dairy Queen. After this long trek through the desert, it’s hard to believe that everything is going to be okay, for the price (five dollars) of a little plastic part. But so it seems, and I choose to remain hopeful. Cautiously hopeful, of course, me being me and all.

The FedEx guy brought the splitter at 2:00 pm today, and it didn’t take me long to test it. I haven’t sent or received any faxes yet, while the modem has been working, but I haven’t needed to. I’ll be relieved when the first fax comes in without kicking me off line. That’s what started this ordeal, and I choose to believe it’s over. And I’ll keep saying that until I stop thinking that maybe it isn’t.

I think I solved this problem by persistently refusing to pursue the one option that was available: making repeated calls to the phone company for technical support. I gave it one try (or two, actually) last Friday, and when I was disconnected twice in a row, I almost gave up. But I did my research on line (in the evening, natch, since I had no choice), and I found a solution that I thought would work. And so far it has.

This just reinforces my philosophy of not making phone calls. It’s always a last resort for me, and I’ve become very creative at workarounds. There are so many other ways to go that I haven’t had to make that phone call for a long, long time. The one exception, the one to the phone company, was such a disaster that I’m even more sure this is the way I want to deal with problems. It’ll be an even laster resort after that.