TheBanyanTree: Don't I feel bad

[JMoney]

It was a bad day.  I tried with the ethernet cable and with the USB cable.
I tried with the disk in the DVD reader and in the CD reader.  Each try
required starting off with everything disconnected.  I had to enter the
username and password I'd finally managed to extract from Telstra ADSL
general enquiries, click through multiple screens as I connected the bits
back together one by one, wait for IE to get loaded, wait for the computer
to reboot and then wait while the set up program looked for the modem.  No
modem detected.

Eventually, as directed, I rang up technical support.  The very nice young
fellow who answered walked me through a completely non-intuitive work-around
involving rerunning the software, opening the device manager screen,
deleting the newly installed network card icon, clicking on "screen for
hardware changes", opening up the install software in Explore, navigating to
the Alcatel folder, finding a file named Menux and then running it.

Yahoo!   It worked.  A new icon appeared on the Network Connections screen -
Local Area Connection 4.  Not only that but something appeared to be
happening with that connection.  Small numbers of bits and bytes were being
transferred.

So I clicked on Internet Explorer and got nothing.  Or rather, I got the
page you get when you don't have a connection with the server.  After a lot
more fiddling around trying to figure out what was wrong I rang up technical
support again.  I got a different young fellow and this one seemed in a
hurry.  Well, of course.  It was probably close to knock off time down in
Melbourne where he was.  In any case, whatever the cause of his rush, it
interfered with our communication because he jumped in with solutions (I'll
set up your new email account for you) before I'd finished explaining the
problem (despite, apparently, having an internet connection, I have no
internet connection).

At last a penny seemed to drop for him.  He asked how many green lights were
showing on the modem.  Two, I said.  Is the light with the @ symbol on?  No,
I said.

So now it seems that there's a problem with my telephone line that doesn't
show up down in Melbourne.  (How do they do that?) A technician will have to
come to my home; probably on Saturday.  OK.  That news, of course, meant
that I had to disconnect everything again and reconnect the old dial up
modem.  Serenity was far from me.

A couple of hours later, still feeling moderately out of sorts, I dressed to
go out to see the movie.  I don't know why it is but people keep saying
they're waiting for me yet once I'm ready they aren't and I have to wait for
them.  When they say they're waiting for me the impression I get is that I'm
the holdup, the roadblock, the problem.  If only I were ready we could all
leave immediately.  But once I am ready we never can.  There's always
someone who hasn't put their shoes on yet, or someone who needs to make a
quick trip to the toilet, or find their wallet, or comb their hair, change
the dogs' water, pay some bills, re-stump the house.

So it was that, instead of leaving at 6.30 for the 7 pm session as we had
agreed we would do, we did not leave until 6.40pm.  What's ten minutes?  The
difference between getting there on time and getting there after the session
has started.  The difference between having choice about where one will sit
and having to find three vacant seats in a row in a packed and darkened
room.  It also leaves little leeway for dealing with a sudden onset of need
to pee and, despite having gone before I left, that is what struck me as
soon as we'd parked the car and started walking to the cinema.

Not wishing to endure that pressure for the following two hours or more I
hurried ahead, found my way to the ladies' room, did what I had to do and
then discovered that I was in a paperless cubicle.  I also discovered that I
had no tissues in my bag.  What to do?  What to do?  What to do, that is,
apart from feeling helpless and forlorn.

Well, enough of that.  I made the best of it, rushed out, joined the family
and together we trooped in.  We chose the best three seat block we could
find in the dim light.  The curtains were drawn wide, the movie started and
it was time to get lost in the dream.

It's not as violent as some had led me to think it might be.  It is violent;
the sort of violence that startles and makes me cringe so that I needed to
look at it sideways and cover my mouth with my hand.  But it doesn't
continue relentlessly, remorselessly, without relief.  And it's not
prurient.  It isn't there just for the shock factor; not like, say, in Pulp
Fiction, or Reservoir Dogs, or Bad Boys I or II or so many other mainstream
movies.

But half-way through the scourging scene I noticed, out of the corner of my
eye, something white moving up and down on my right.  And every so often my
seat would jerk, as though it was being kicked.

I tried to ignore it but the movement of the white thing became more and
more pronounced.   I looked.  Someone sitting next to my husband was holding
something white and was moving his hands up and down, from his lap to above
his head, as though he was a conductor leading the players as they acted out
their cruelty on the screen.

Again I tried to ignore it.  Maybe he was some sort of weirdo.  But,
combined with the thin fabric of my composure after a trying day, those
flashes of white and the repeated jerking of my seat soon became more
irritating than I could bear.  Almost before I knew what I was doing I had
leaned across my husband and was saying, "Would you mind not doing that
please?  It's very off-putting."

It worked, more or less.  His hands still moved, but not so widely and
wildly.  I could forget about him and get drawn back into the pictures on
the screen.

When the movie was over, while the credits were still rolling, the man and
his companion quickly left.  I asked my husband whether he'd noticed the
man's flailing hands.  He said, "From the start."

"From the start?"

"Yes.  He's spastic."

So there I was, watching a movie about the greatest forgiver of all time and
I couldn't tolerate the emotion induced limb movements of a person who has
little to no control over those movements.  Do I feel bad?  I sure do.

Now to figure out what to do next.

Janice