A tale of two modems

We have been trying to transfer our internet service to the new house. Unfortunately the provider, who I won’t name and shame, recorded the wrong house number for the new service. Fortunately we discovered the mistake in time to prevent some hapless neighbour from unwittingly acquiring our internet.

However the internet provider’s systems are apparently so inflexible that the only way to correct the mistake is to cancel the order and start again. Simple. Except the modem for the first order had already been dispatched and – of course – the only way to fix that was to start again and send another modem.

So in these two courier’s satchels are two identical modems. We are waiting for the provider to send a special box so we can return one modem to them. Now, how many ways can that go wrong?