Bye-bye, Stone Age

…the Stone Age began roughly 2.5 million years ago, ended in some parts of the world 5,000 years ago… rapidly vanishing with the introduction of tools from the modern industrialized world. ~Microsoft Encarta

Everybody, put on the party hats! Whoopee! I know it’s not Halloween Night yet. Neither are the exams over. But the caveman has every reason to celebrate!

For years, the caveman has been silently suffering over the sluggish speed of his 31st-century B.C. dialup service. He banged his modem with his club, turned his CPU up-side-down and even bribed his computer with Swiss chocolate, but nothing worked. Then one day, someone came by and introduced him a 21st-century A.D. technology known as “broadband”, which promised break-neck connection speed. Finally, the caveman has something to look forward to.

I don’t know how she managed to persuade my mom. I’ve been trying to explain to her the ordeals of using a dialup connection but I never succeeded in getting the message across. Generation gap? I don’t know how, but Chloe did it! Attagirl!

Normally, I don’t open the door for salespersons. I just have a general distaste towards them, especially those irritable chaps from Wonderway who bugged us a few years back. Maybe, our stars didn’t match, or may be I’m allergic towards people in this profession.

However, when Chloe rang the doorbell yesterday morning, I was glad I opened the door. Initially, I thought it was some kind of survey which normally goes along the lines, “Hi, sir! I’m Mr Blah from Alpha Omega company. Do you mind telling me which shampoo you’re currently using? Why don’t you try out… Blah, blah, blah…” Heck, no! Instead, she turned out to be promoting Streamyx. Unfortunately, she came at the wrong time as my mom had gone to the church. And I wasn’t in the position to make the decision.

“It’s alright, I’ll be in this area till seven,” the amiable girl said. She promised to come back at one when my mom returned.

Later, when my mom reached home, I told her to expect a Streamyx representative. She went like, “What were you thinking when you asked her to come back?” Wow, that’s a great start! I sighed. Sure enough, Chloe came back at one, as promised. Not daring to place any hope, I left mom to talk to her alone. But, who would have thought that my mom actually let her in! Now, that deserved a second “Wow!”.

I guess it was some kind of female thingy. You know, people say that females can strike a chord easier among themselves. Chloe actually managed to convince her to switch to broadband. Golly, that’s the message I was trying to get across but ended up feeling like banging my head on the wall after a couple of futile attempts! Oh well, need I say there went my third “Wow!”? Of the other qualities she had, I attributed her success to her soft-spoken manner plus her zeal.

The bad news is, with the coming “combo festival” I may have to wait while they place an order for the modem and get it delivered to the house. But when the time comes, it’ll be a quantum leap from the Stone Age to the Broadband Age.

Hopefully, without delay, it’ll take less than three weeks. Oh, how the caveman hopes the delivery boy flies here on a pterodactyl instead of riding on a slow woolly mammoth! Make haste!