Tag Archives: gremlins

Gremlin Pictures

These critters get the best of us from time to time around here. They’ll lull us into a sense of confidence and taking things for granted and then attack with a vengeance, knocking the wind out of us.

This week they attacked our phones and our Internet.

PHONES – Suddenly, we couldn’t call out. We had a flashing light on our home cell phone base, but couldn’t get the messages. We tried everything we knew how to do to no avail. I called AT&T today and a wonderful lady named Bernetta helped me. After I unplugged our cell phone base and took out the batteries, she did something on her end that caused the thing to reset. She called our home line while I was still on my cell to test it. She got our “Press 1 if you’re human and not selling anything,” message and we got the call. She was laughing her head off at the message and wanted to know where we got it. When I told her my husband used a program he wrote to generate the message, she said she could sell a million of them, still laughing. She said, “You’ve made my day with that.” She made OUR day by being so nice and helping us make our phones work again. When we got off the phone, we retrieved our messages and then turned OFF that message source, since we have another one attached to our system that helps us block unwanted calls. HOORAY! One gremlin down!

INTERNET – We have a gremlin in our Internet service, too.

I can’t get to my website host panel. This is a problem because (1) I send out newsletters via the panel and can’t get to it. I also can report problems, etc. I can’t sign in. Their main website comes up, but I can’t do anything with it. They’ve been working we me, getting me to run terminal sessions and do strange stuff and send them the results. When I did, they said,”Unfortunately, you will need to contact your Internet services provider,as your traffic does not appear to leave their network.” This is all Greek to me, so I wrote our son, the computer guru my HUSBAND goes to when HE (the computer analyst) needs help. Our son said from what he saw in the dats, it looked like my webhost people were right and the problem was with the Internet provider. My husband wrote a careful email to the tech person we’ve been working with. We’re awaiting his reply, and the gremlin laughs at us.

ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS – We have learned over the years that mice consider wiring delicious. We had never heard of this, but we’re gradually learning to do as much wirelessly as possible. It’s too hard to get into the walls, get under the house, etc., to try to repair the wires they’ve eaten or run new wires. Our new project is to try to starve them out eventually – if we live long enough.

SO – right now we’re running down one thing after another which aren’t working suddenly, and the causes are mysterious. I don’t speak “electricity,” “phones,” or ‘Internet,” so all things are controlled by magic – with the approval of the gremlins. My husband, however, speaks all these languages and doesn’t enjoy the mystery.

Is there a spray that controls gremlins?