Today was new wifi box day, to coincide with a cheaper plan from the member of the communications oligopoly that I deal with. To facilitate such a thing, contacting the company by telephone is useless, and the web site worse than useless, the irony of which is probably lost on customer service management in the organization. They are not paid to be aware, only to obfuscate.

So I went to one of its retail stores, being fortunate enough to live in a major metro that has a location nearby. At such a place, it’s harder for company representatives to dodge my request, though the first alternate plan he suggested was only a little cheaper and not what I’d asked for. Just letting me know the options, he said. Of course.

Eventually I got more or less what I wanted, but it also involved me taking a new box home and setting it up myself. Ah, do I have to? Yes, or pay more for someone to do it. That wasn’t the case before. So I took the box home and let it sit around for a few days. Procrastination is part of my nature, especially when I suspect something will mysteriously go wrong in the process, because the system doesn’t respond for mysterious reasons, or the instructions tell me to do something that mysteriously doesn’t apply to my equipment, or is otherwise mysteriously impossible.

They say the cosmos is full of mystery. This isn’t the kind of potential mystery that’s awe-inspiring, just annoying.

Speaking of which: once upon a time, people imagined a time when robots would be our servants or, in darker imaginings, our enemies. But at any rate, robots would be commonplace. We have arrived at that time. We deal with robots every day. Every moment, you could argue; we call them automated phone systems and algorithms. And what are they? Friendly? Menacing? No, just annoying.

The oligopolist forced the issue today by shutting down the old equipment. So into the installation weeds I went. There were a few stumbles in the process, but I’ve been through worse and everything seems to be working. One minor mystery is that the box now requires two electrical connections, while the old one needed only one, which is slightly inconvenient.

Worth the trouble, though. The savings will add up. Maybe I’ll blow the first month’s savings on Malört. Been a year since I’ve had any.