The details are unnecessary, but suffice it to say that my boyfriend and I, through no fault of our own, had been without internet at our home since the middle of May. The problem mushroomed until August. Of course, at the onset of this dilemma, it was one of our top priorities to fix it. I called the technical assistance line, and was confronted with an anomaly foreign to my American mind: “Vous serez facturé .34 centimes d’euro la minute.” I in effect had to pay in order to communicate, and thereby hopefully resolve, my problem! And did that first phone call help in fixing said problem? Tu parles?! Not even close. And it didn’t stop there – we were automatically billed all along, fluidly and directly, for the web service which didn’t work. So, while aware that I was paying two bills at once, I doggedly kept calling, kept getting the turnaround, and surely, kept paying. And I might point out here that the telephone bill and web bill were actually from the same monstrous company (not to name any names). I soon felt an uncomfortably strong resemblance to that more legendary shrimpy Jewish guy, the one with the slingshot.