(I just finished watering the unplanted annuals. I really WAS going to finish planting but then it was really Quite Cloudy outside and I even heard Thunder. So I had a nap. But now, I have a moment to try to remember how it all went down.)
May 30 (Monday night): So I sat there and tried to imagine what EfficientOne would tell me to do. Do you remember those bracelets? I remember when the hottest Christian fashion was wearing an ugly plastic bracelet with the initials: “WWJD.” That meant, “What would Jesus do?” Bleh. It was supposed to inspire the Youth of the Day to take action in the Most Appropriate Way. Let me say: STEP ONE: Take off the Ugly Bracelet. It makes you look like a Dork.
What would Jesus Do. Oh my.
And then it got worse.
There were all the Variations. Here was one that I actually heard: If Jesus were around (as if he isn’t), then What Would Jesus Drive?
The correct answer was probably supposed to be: some old clunker that barely ever works, because he’s so Obviously Humble.
So wrong.
He’d drive a ‘vette, I’d bet. It might not be black, because Jesus wasn’t a priest, but just part of the regular folk. The music would be going.
And all the ‘good’ people would judge him, and shake their heads and pity him, and say that it’s So Sad that the Youth of Today are so Clueless and Lost and Completely Mistaken about Goodness and Virtue and All Piety and Such.
He wouldn’t be listening. He’d be heading to his next party.
You see, it’s so often the very Goodest Bestest people who have everything entirely wrong. When I was at that dinner, for instance, someone (let’s call him Mark) actually said that so-and-so was Bad. His proof? The guy had “been to jail and everything.”
!
You MUST be kidding.
Going to jail does NOT – absolutely NOT – prove anything like that at all.
Oh my. It so does NOT prove anything like that at all. The people in jail are there for as many reasons as there are flowers at the garden shop. Some are there because the judge was just in a Really Bad Mood that particular Thursday afternoon. Some are there because they were the only one in the gang brave enough to take the heat for the agreed-upon crime. Oh people: you have no idea.
Don’t say the people on the inside are worse than the people on the outside. You have no idea. Consider the two people hanging on the cross beside our Lord and Master. Two thieves – both publicly condemned, yet one is told that he’ll be joining Jesus in paradise later that day. Dismas, the ‘good thief’ is now remembered by name and WiseOne named one of her dogs after him.
Man.
Sometimes I forget that people think things like that. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. You’re in prison = you’re bad. I’m free = I’m good. How entirely stupid.
Okay right. So, I consulted my bracelet. It was stamped with WWES (What would EfficientOne say?) I thought he’d tell me to contact GoDaddy and ask what the problem was. For a moment, I imagined, that perhaps it was a temporary momentary glitch that could be fixed at the flick of a switch.
I made my call. Time: let’s say about 11:00 p.m. MST May 30 (Monday).
I spoke to Ed.
Ed said
He’d never seen anything like it at all.
Ed said
After what felt like endless questioning
About who was in my system at what hour and about SiteLock and so on and this that and everything
Ed said
All of my files were missing, and marked “Quarantine” for no reason at all.
I asked for the time that my blog went offline.
He gave it.
I wrote it down.
Ed seemed to almost enjoy the drama of it all.
Not the ordinary please-help-me-tech call.
He had a lot to say.
I was listening for the words that I wanted to hear.
I was like the person who has brought her I-hope-he’s-not-dead moose to the veterinarian (carried there on the back of a Ford 150).
Ed said
In all his years (hey dad, you remember those lines?)
In all his years
He’d never seen
Anything like this
Ed said
He had a good ratio
If he did say so himself
Of successful answers to the Calls that Came In
He gave himself a score of 7 out of 10.
I was listening to this.
Meanwhile, I was wondering, Is my moose going to live?
Ed said
It wasn’t your fault
(I knew that.)
You’re paid up with your fees
(Indeed – I’ve purchased until 2020 or whenever the female mooses come home.)
Ed said
We didn’t send you a notice.
I knew that.
Ed said,
And you always change your c-Panel password if someone else has been recently working in there.
(He liked thinking aloud.)
Hmmm
said Ed.
I was listening to this.
Is my Moose going to live?
Ed seemed quite interested in my Situation.
But he never quite said
My moose was going to live.
Though that’s really precisely What I Needed to Hear.
Instead, he explained.
You see
He said.
There are two things.
I protested.
I said, “Oh please don’t try to Educate me right now. I’m too stressed. I can’t digest
All that.”
But he got a Little Annoyed.
How can he Explain things if You Won’t Listen?
So I was quiet.
Ed continued.
You see,
Ed said
There’s two kinds of things.
There’s Data.
And then there are
Files.
We can’t find
Your Files.
Just gone.
Entirely gone.
Oh.
So my Moose is dead?
Well no, said Ed.
They’re there.
But they’ve been marked.
They say, “Quarantine.”
And Ed
Couldn’t get in.
I was listening to this.
It’s now been more than an hour.
Ed said,
You see,
GoDaddy is like
The gated community
And your blog site is like
A house.
(Is my moose going to live?)
Ed said,
We don’t exactly watch your house
But we are the
Gated Community.
(I’m thinking, Yeah, and someone broke the gates on your Gated Community and then broke into my house, hey?)
Anyway.
Ed said,
I’ve never seen anything Like This
I just
Never saw
But
It’s important to us
Really
Important to us
And so
That’s why I’ve Escalated and that’s why there’s Someone Else
Working right now on this same situation.
We’re trying to figure out
What Happened Here.
Tick tock tick tock.
I was, to my credit,
Rather quite patient.
I thought.
Meanwhile, I really had just the one question.
BUT IS MY MOOSE GOING TO LIVE?
Well, said Ed.
There’s data.
And
There are files.
Data is what you did.
But then there are Other Things.
Plug-ins, graphics, themes, photos.
I was listening to this.
Did I have a theme?
Ed said,
Of course you have a theme
All WordPress sites have a theme
I was thinking, Do I have a theme?
I wasn’t sure.
How that all worked.
Ed said,
For example.
You make a post.
You put a picture of your cat.
And you write some things.
I was listening to this.
To his description of me and my blog.
I said,
I’m not Worried about my graphics.
(Didn’t have any at the time.)
It’s the words. I had a lot of words on there.
Ed said,
Well, watch what I can do.
Go to your blog.
Are you on there right now?
I went.
It changed.
Now it said
Something like
“Just wait – this is the future home of Something Exciting.”
I inwardly groaned.
But Ed
Ed was happy.
You see what I did?
Isn’t that better
Than an Error message?
I had to agree.
It was, um, better.
Not quite, uh, Everything I Had Wanted,
But I was in no shape to complain.
Carry on, Ed.
Ed said,
We just can’t figure out what happened, but I could sell you a System Restore.
It will cost you $150
But I can probably get you a Discount on That
Why don’t you go and check
For a COUPON CODE?
Seriously?
My moose is lying dead on the table and now I’m supposed to go look through old emails to find the COUPON CODE?
I said, I can’t exactly think about coupon codes right now.
I’ll pay pretty much whatever you ask.
As you know, GoDaddy.
Upsell me Monday to Friday
Upsell me Saturday and Sunday
Upsell me 24/7
Upsell me up the river
Upsell me when I am stressed
Do it again.
How much will that be?
$150.
I ask, I assume that’s American currency?
Oopsie! “My bad” says Ed.
How cute.
My moose might be dead, but you’re still chipper and fun.
Great.
He completes the order for my upcoming Restore.
That $150 was American, yes. It’ll be more in Canadian.
Whatever.
Oh, and I also bought a $2 per month System Back-Up, never offered to me before.
(I guess I wasn’t quite Upsold Enough.)
Sure, I’ll take that.
I guess.
So, says Ed.
Just wait now.
The Technicians in the Back
Who Never Speak to the Customers
(Where are they from?)
will be
Working on that.
Ed and I parted
Amicably.
We agreed,
That whoever did this to me
Wasn’t going to get
A Christmas card
This year.
Definitely not.
Not even one of those e-mail ones.
So that was Ed.
It was now, technically, Tuesday morning May 31, but it felt like Monday night.
I went to bed.
May 31 (Tuesday morning): I didn’t move out of bed. I thought, what’s the rush? Either my site is there, as if nothing had happened and people can read post 136
Or it’s not.
I don’t know if I can bear to look
Just quite yet.
Finally, I went to go check. An email is there. It came in at
8:27 a.m. Tuesday, May 31. An email has arrived from GoDaddy. It says that the Restoration is Complete.
I look at my blog.
I have
Now
A menu bar
Plus the title.
And nothing else.
$150 US and many hours and that’s what I’ve got.
Wow.
That’s all they could find? 136 posts and that’s all they could save? The menu bar?
The menu bar?
So, let me see.
Someone comes to my post and really enjoys reading NOTHING and then wants to go visit my ABOUT page in order to learn more about the Blogger who writes NOTHING? Or now they want to CONTACT me because they’ve never seen anyone write NOTHING like that?
Good thing there’s a Menu bar.
It helps, you know, with
Site Navigation
I’ve heard.
Nobody will have Any Trouble At All
Navigating
Through that
Empty Space
Where my blog used to be.
That’s just, uh, Swell,
GoDaddy.
And upon review of that email, which arrived at 8:27 a.m., I find it particularly odd that there are two references to “minedgames.”
MinedGames?
And that is?
What exactly?
I don’t mined the name, but I just would like to point out,
Ben C.
Of Expert Services
That MinedGames has
Absolutely and Completely Nothing to Do
with me
and my moose.
How dare you call my Nearly Dead Moose “Hubert” when his real name was “Rupert!” Did you mix up the files, BenC of Expert Services? Or are you just fast and loose with the keys?
And by the way
Did you notice?
THERE’S NOTHING THERE!
“Complete”
My ass.
That’s not looking very complete to me.
Alright.
So I call tech services again.
Who did I get?
It was Herbert.
Herbert wasn’t as chipper as Ed.
No, that wasn’t his style.
Rather pushy and not very friendly, if I recall correctly.
He told me that:
He can’t see where Ben C put my files, but it’s Somewhere Inside.
I asked him,
But does it seem like a Big File?
It should be a Big File.
(How do you hide a moose?)
The fellow responded
He Couldn’t Tell
The only ones who could tell were
The Techs in the Back
Who Never Speak to the Customers
He also told me
That all he could do was Put me in the Queue, again.
That if they couldn’t find more, then they couldn’t find more.
That was our call.
So at around 2:16 p.m. May 31, Herbert had sent in a Second Request to the Techs in the Back who speak Computer but not English, I guess. Or maybe they’d speak to the customers if GoDaddy would let them. Is it an option?
I looked at my Menu Bar.
Well, it was better than nothing.
I tried to write a post. To you. I tried to write a post to you to tell you some of my troubles. I wanted to tell you that I was trying to get everything fixed.
But I couldn’t.
It didn’t work.
A preview gave me a weird Error message
Instead of what I wrote.
It felt, strangely, like I’d lost my voice.
Couldn’t even write to tell you what had happened and what was happening.
But you saw the Menu bar and you saw a part title in the middle of all that black background, so perhaps you knew I was trying to claw my way back.
I was.
But now I decided that I’d given GoDaddy its primary chance.
I emailed EfficientOne. Could he help?
I can’t remember how I spent the day.
But it was spent.
I was spent.
I went around in a daze.
I felt like someone who was waiting for someone to be wheeled out of the surgery room. Someone who can’t quite focus on anything else because a part of their heart is Waiting. Waiting to see if Everything is Okay.
The day went by.
I went to bed.
Waiting for EfficientOne to tell me he could help, and waiting for GoDaddy to do the restore.
I sat there in the dark
On my bed.
It felt a little like
I was dead.
Not entirely
Of course.
But a little bit like that. I found out there’s something entirely weird about putting out your dreams to the world, your thoughts and your ramblings and then finally your face and then have it all disappear as if you never said anything at all, as if you never existed as if you made no difference.
Melodramatic?
Okay, you try it.
Anyway, if I were dead, I guess I know now who wouldn’t be at my funeral.
If I were dead, they wouldn’t care. I get it. Not reading not looking just a little busy over here on this other side of Samaritan Street. Oh, blog troubles? I see. Didn’t particularly notice. Wasn’t watching in the least. Wasn’t even aware. Too-dilly-dee.
I get it.
Don’t think I don’t.
June 1 (Wednesday):
I’m good.
I feel like today, everything will Turn Around. I walked over to check my emails with brave and unhesitating steps.
Sure enough, EfficientOne is ready to go.
He’s there; he’s written to me. (I’ll give him my codes.)
As for GoDaddy, he’s gone.
Or not around.
Still.
Whatever.
Hence the name?
You say: “Go, Daddy!” and Daddy just goes? Like a dog who is half Labrador Retriever, and so only knows half the game of ‘go-fetch’? (My joke and my dog. Goes to get the stick but doesn’t really return it, being only half the breed. These half-breeds, you never know what we’re going to do, hey?)
Anyway, so Go Daddy was Gone.
Whatever.
I have EfficientOne.
That’s better.
I sent him the c-Panel information. Now he has access to everything GoDaddy does.
He is starting how many hours after they did? From when shall we say the clock started for them? Shall we run it from the time I first called them and spoke with Ed, or from the time Ed asked the Techs in the Back to start? Or shall we run it from the time that I called them again? Or from the time that my second request made its way to the front? Or shall we not even bother to time them at all?
Let’s time EfficientOne instead.
9:01 a.m.: I sent him the updated c-Panel information.
11:11 a.m.: The site is up and running. 136 posts are there. Contact page fixed. Graphics in place (I emailed him those. I also emailed the dino and the tomato but I couldn’t remember where I had ’em. I’ll try to figure it out and I’ll let him know, one of these days.)
But I was entirely glad. I was relieved and I went out to garden. Didn’t want to think about computers and blogging. Whew. I shall recover.
June 1 (Wednesday): I figure, I better contact GoDaddy and let them know that I won’t need their help. I go to my computer. There’s a message in there. At 9:15 p.m., GoDaddy wrote to say that my restoration is complete.
Aagh!
The “Restoration” has undone what EfficientOne fixed! The files that they finally found were not current – they backed me up to five days ago and so now I have 135 posts instead of post 136 (I note the poetry of always losing the post called “This is Me”) and the Contact page doesn’t work and the graphics are gone. So weird. Couldn’t they see The Difference?
I call GoDaddy.
What have you done?
Can’t you just hit “Undo” or something? Can’t you just undo this latest “Restoration”?
GoDaddy tells me that he cannot.
That would be the Techs in the Back.
Oh my.
Alright, I say,
(I back slowly away.)
Just please promise me,
You won’t touch anything more.
(I back slowly away.)
Please, don’t touch a single thing.
(He assures me they won’t.)
I go running. It is Thursday, June 2 at 12:05 a.m. but it felt like Wednesday night.
EfficientOne! EfficientOne! Look what they’ve done!
He looks. He fixes it. Even the background gets restored.
Hello BlueSky, haven’t seen you for a while!
The blog makes me smile.
Hot damn.
As my dad would say.
(We’re the proud descendants of Pierre Surrette, that Acadian who never quite left when they were supposed to be deported. You wouldn’t catch him walking around in Louisiana. He hid in the woods. He sometimes got caught. Spent some time in the clinker for Hanging Around when he was Supposed to Be Deported. Doesn’t mean he was bad. It meant he was stubborn and maybe he was hungry – apparently foraging only gets you so far. The point is, he didn’t go away. Finally, the deportation was over and he lived another day. And another. The descendants kept coming. And the descendants made descendants. A good system.)
Today, I really will try to plant these flowers and the new tomato.
But first, I’ll post this post.