Grassroots Motorsports

Donny is pretty sure it’s a vacuum Aug 22, 2006

I went to Radio Shack yesterday to buy a signal booster for my wireless network at home, since long stretched-out ranch house plus weak service-provider-supplied DSL modem/wireless router equals many dead spots.

I found a lot of wireless routers that looked like they’d be more powerful than what I already had, but since mine has the DSL modem built in already I couldn’t get rid of it. At that point the clerk came over and asked me if I needed help, and I explained that my wireless network had a lot of dead spots, and that I was looking for a signal booster. He frowned mightily as soon as I said “booster,” so I hastily explained that I knew I didn’t want a booster, but more correctly a relay device that would receive my signal and then bounce it to the dead spots. More frowning, even after I prompted him: “You used to carry these? They plug into the wall?” Nope, he said, nothing like that. I should buy THIS—and points me to the routers I don’t want, though first he has to read the tags on each one to figure out WTF it is. Fine.

I start to exit the store, when another guy comes up and offers to help me. No, thanks, I don’t think you have what I want.

He persisted, so gave him the same explanation I’d given the previous guy—right down to the part about how it’s more of a relay, and plugs into a wall outlet, and how’s about it? He replies with a lot of questions—where is my router placed, how far away from the farthest computer, how many walls does it go through—and I do manage to convince him that I do, indeed, have dead spots in my wireless network, though it is not easy. Then he proclaims, “I don’t think you want what you think you want.”

“Really?” I answer. “What do I think I want?” (I have to admit that this was said with an evil grin that should have warned any sane person away from that tack.)

“Well,” he says, “you don’t need a router.”

I tell him (again) that I agree, that my Bellsouth modem is also a router. Then he gets into a side quibble with me about how it’s not a modem, it’s a router, and when I tell him it actually performs both functions, he answers, “No, it’s a router. You don’t know what you have.” The evil grin has become an outright sneer by this point, but he continues obviously, “You need a booster—actually, it’s more of a relay.

“Really?” I say again. “Like one that plugs into a wall outlet?” (I have to admit this was said with some satisfaction, since I love a clean kill.)

“No,” he answers. “It’s not like that. It actually plugs into a wall outlet.”

Wow. Like a vampire, this guy is unkillable. Yet already dead.

At this point my kids, who are with me, burst into snickers, and Tommy says to me, “Didn’t you just say exactly that?”

“Yes,” I tell my son aloud, “But this man knows that I am female, and therefore have ovaries in my ears which interfere with my ability to learn about and understand electronics.”

The man who is “assisting” me doesn’t react, and appears not to have even heard me, even though he is still standing directly opposite and facing me.

“Mom!” Katie exclaims, “he’ll hear you!”

“No, Katie,” I tell her, “we are in an electronics store. Here females can say anything they want, and it’s completely undetectable to those behind the counter.”

Sure enough, clerk guy is still standing there, and in fact launches once again into an explanation of what a router is, what a signal booster does, and by the way, they don’t have any in stock. Do I want him to order one for me?

“Um, thanks, no,” I tell him. “I’ll order it online.”

I’ll just have to make sure I don’t type like a girl when I do.

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