I’m on hold for Symantec Support. I’ve been on hold for a total of 50 minutes now. They have eight songs that they repeat ad nauseum. I’m on my third loop now. Hell is a waiting room with eight 80s soft rock tracks on a loop. The only question is do you do yourself in to Janet Jackson or Peter Cetera?

It might be fun to program hold music for Symantec. Are there any songs about viruses, worms, computer crashes, ancient chinese water torture?

I don’t get viruses. This is the first one in over a year. I’m exceptionally anal about viruses. I don’t know if I like those words, anal and virus, in the same sentence. I downloaded all the Windows Updates Thursday. I did a full virus sweep, after downloading the new virus definitions, Friday. I got this virus Saturday morning.

It was an email apparently sent from me, but at hotmail.com. I was leary. I scanned the zip file for viruses. Clean, it said. I unzipped it. I scanned the resulting text file for viruses. Clean, it said. I opened the text file. It said: “sorry.” I couldn’t say why I allowed myself to be duped so easily. Just today I deleted four emails from what appeared to be my bank asking me to update my security information.

I don’t believe the person who wrote that text file was at all sorry.

Now my Internet Security and Anti-Virus aren’t working. Nice.

Janet: “Baby, baby. Baby, baby. Baby, baby.”

The phone is against my ear. I switch ears and cock my sore neck the other way.

I still have access to the Internet. Except, surprisingly, Symantec’s website. That’s the one I need of course. Nice.

Janet: “Baby, baby. Baby, baby. Baby, baby.”

So, while I’ve been on hold, I uninstalled and reinstalled Norton Internet Security. I’ve had to do that once before. It’s always a disaster. Windows doesn’t like to remove it. It gouges out chunks of it so that it’s not installed and not uninstalled and just a bloody mess. Symantec’s installation CD also can’t fix this mess. You need a program called sysNRT. Luckily I still had it from last time.

With some relief and quite a bit more shock, the tool removed my installation. But when I reinstalled it, it was still corrupted. But I think it was corrupted because of the virus. Not the reinstallation.

Uninstall and reinstall again. Like the looped music I’m listening to. This time it asked for my Activation Code. Which of course is a bad sign. That code expired a year ago. I have renewed my subscription since then of course. But most certainly this activation code won’t work.

Now I’ve got a product I can’t install. And I can’t remove the virus until I install it.

I enlisted a friend to push through Symantec’s website to find a tech support phone number. This took us about 30 minutes. Many many forms to fill out. But no phone number and no email. At last she emerged from the techno heap with a real-world phone number. Symantec Tech Support: 800.441.7234.

And then I think I pushed my way through about 12 menus when I first called Symantec. The result: they told me to visit a page on the Internet. Of course they did. Because I can’t. I couldn’t figure out a way to back out of the menu structure or restart it. So I had to hang up and do it again. This time making new random choices.

I finally got a person who didn’t altogether understand English named something like Bebuk. I suspect that Symantec farms out its tech support to India. And he, Bebuk, he said his speciality, when I finally decrypted what he was saying, was Activation. And my problem was a virus, or at the very least, Reactivation. Which wasn’t his speciality.

That’s when he put me on hold again. That’s when the hold music was reset the first time. It has looped now. On hold, is where I am still. The sun has set since I first called Symantec.

It’s an interesting writing exercise. English teachers: Collect a list of Tech Support numbers. For your PC, for your phone, for your cable, whatever. Have students call the number. And start writing. When a real person answers, they are finished.

It’s now been 70 minutes. The hold music just looped again.

I’m hungry.

It’s ringing. Jesusmaryandjoseph.

SS