What else is new?

I was forced today to think a bit slower than usual, which may not be a bad thing in general but was exceptionally frustrating considering I have a project deadline in less than five days and had slated this particular Saturday to really attack a large portion of it. Instead, I was reduced to sketching lame illustrations and finally, penning my growing aggravation on real paper.
We didn't have internet, again, and for no good reason as usual. Though the office we pay to keep us connected lists a myriad of them, each contradicting the other. They tell us they don't have electricity, then they tell us we don't have electricity which I can see quite clearly that we do. They tell us there is contsruction on the road outside our house which I can see quite clearly there is not. They tell us they will call their 'tech people' (a cramped office right in the back of their own dirty little shop strung with wires galore and housing nothing making any sense in terms of what would constitute a server).
Three hours later we still don't have internet and I'm practically jumping I'm so stressed about the lost time. Another call to explain for the umpteenth time that it is the crappy little hub they've installed on our roof that keeps dying every now and then that is the problem and I get lots of 'No madam...you should upgrade your service' and just when I'm about to be really, really mean they tell us they will come to our house to check it out.
Thirty minutes later and they have left the office and are not answering their cel phones. They are not on the way to our house.
We will not have internet today. I will get nothing done. And they don't care.
We've been through this before, and every time it happens which is at least once a month I threaten them with a non payment on our next bill but we know they are our only option and they know it is an empty promise.

I have ranted and raved about India for the past year, at least - really struggling with what I read back to myself later as a very grouchy disposition about this supposedly wonderful culture I'm immersed in. I mean, here I am living abroad, I should be going on and on about what a transcendental experience it all is and how much closer to my inner yogi I have become thanks to the peaceful nature of the people who surround me. But, no. There will be none of that.
I'm certainly way beyond the point of even pretending to play travel guide.

Now, I realize these things happen from time to time even in the first world. No technology is infallible and I remember well the sometimes months-long verbal warfare with massive telcos like AT&T and Qwest for exhorbitant bills full of calls I never made and even a five-hundred dollar bill for a 'business line' the phone company insisted I was responsible for even though I had just moved into my apartment and hadn't even actually set up a land line at all.

To top it all off we have had running water for a total of two hours today. Yesterday we did not have water at all. There are people out in the yard next door slamming away on the pipes and yelling at eachother about how best to address what is obviously a bigger problem than a ratchet and hammer and some yelling can fix - but no, they'll do things their own way and we won't have water tomorrow either.