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I'm probably being a little unfair but...it was his fault. Mostly. I think.

Our internet has been coming and going since Friday night, sometimes going out for hours at a time. Since it's a luxury for us, not a necessity, I waited until today to call Spectrum to see what was up. Incidentally, today the cable also went a little wonky: I was unable to receive some of the higher channels. When I called Spectrum, they determined it's not a widespread problem--the neighbors are having zero issues--and they think it might have something to do with the cable coming into the house that provides both internet and TV to the cable boxes. They're sending someone out late tomorrow to check.

None of this sounds like something to fight over, right? But no...there are two factors complicating all this (maybe more). First, Dad was raised to never pay someone for something he can do. Over the years, he has jury-rigged our electronics, adding more cables here and splitters there, etc., so that it probably no longer resembles anything a technician would be familiar with. Second...I do not care HOW something works. I just want it to work. Seriously, there's something in my brain that just shuts down as soon as someone busts out a long-winded explanation of the hows and whys something works. So after the call, I informed Dad that a technician would be coming out tomorrow and he immediately launches into a long explanation of where the cable is coming into the house and how it's split here and there's a splitter there with an "in-out-out-out" connector and blah blah blah blah blah. I told him calmly that I do not care about all that, that I want the technician to come, take a look at the set up, see if he sees anything wrong and we'll take it from there and maybe even see if there's something we can do to simplify our set up.

This was not acceptable to Dad.

So he's going on and on and hauling furniture away from the wall and taking the dry erase board that normally is on the fridge and drawing me a technical, detailed drawing of all the relevant wires and cables and I? Do. Not. CARE. I am VERY much the person who lets the pro in, says "have at it!" and then clears out of the way. I tried telling Dad that in my ideal world, I would hide in another room tomorrow when the tech is here and he and Dad can talk specs all they want. Dad also kept going on and on about "what we should do is..." and I told him maybe let the pro look first and then make recommendations.

And then the fight was on 🙄

He was all "Fine, I'll just wash my hands of all this!" and I was all "I've told you a thousand times I'm not GOOD at knowing HOW stuff works, and my brain doesn't retain that information and I *just said* you two can talk about it tomorrow!" and he was all "But I just spent 10 minutes telling you all about this so now you know as much as I do!" and 🤦‍♀️

I actually left the room in tears, which I never do, and he seems BIG mad, which I think is unreasonable because I've never been able to make him understand that not everyone has the ability to figure out problems or understand how some things work. It also upsets me that he doesn't seem to care when he's upset me, and will sometimes blithely continue doing exactly what's upsetting me while KNOWING he's upsetting me, though sometimes he's awkwardly nice and helpful the next day, like he knows he did wrong but can't quite bring himself to apologize (which is usually OK because I've always been someone who thinks actions speak louder than words).

And of course the entire time I'm on the phone, the cat is barfing on the rug. And of course after I hang up, Spectrum somehow manages to get our internet up and running again, hence this post.