The following are quotes and extractions from my job as a support technician for a large Internet Service Provider. All are quotes by customers unless noted otherwise. I hope you enjoy!

"Man, one night I was scannin' the web and I got into them illegal sites, man
there was some stuff in there I couldn't believe, I woulda never thought of
that."

Tech: Type in 'Dixie-Net' in that box.
Cust: "How da h*** do you spell 'dixie'?"

"Yeah, I was up there today and I got me one of them tapes to go online."

Tech: What's checked on this screen?
Cust: "... and TCP slut IP... I mean slash IP"

"Can you change the frequency of the busy signal on my phone lines? My computer
doesn't recognize it."

Tech: Ok, get back to your desktop.
Cust: "I don't have a desktop, I have a tower.

"Yeah, I'm having a problem. When I dial in, it sounds like a fax machine; a
God-Awful squawking noise."

"Can you see my computer?"

After speaking to this lady for 30 minutes, she could still not express her problem to me in exact terms. I was beginning to get frustrated when she belted out "This is what you call two people that don't know nothin!"

"Lightening ran into my house and messed up my phone system. Do you think that's why my modem's not working?"

"Is this my phone number (Customer then proceeds to call out the number she uses to connect to the internet) ?

After talking to this particular customer for quite a while, the tech asks her to click one more thing. The customer then says "Wow, this mouse has eat so much cheese, it should be as big as the screen."

"These things take so long to come up, they should sing to you or something."

After spending 30 minutes trying to explain how to 'right click,' the customer asks the tech point blank: "When you hold the mouse in your hand, which is the right button, the left one or the right one?"

"Are you connected to me?"

After having the customer create a shortcut, the tech says "Now you should have an icon on your desktop that says 'Shortcut to Dixie-Net'."

Customer: "OOOOHHH DID YOU JUST PUT THAT ON THERE?"

Tech: "Yes ma'am"

Customer: "You guys are so smart on these computers."

Voice Mail: "Uhhh Yeah. We can't log on to the mail server. Please e-mail me and tell me what's wrong."

Tech: "I think you'll need to run a scandisk.

Customer: "Oh, ok, I guess I'll have to get me one of those."

Tech: "Ok put the *70 in there to turn off you call waiting."

(phone goes beep, beep, beep)

Tech: (pause) "Did you get that typed in there?"

Customer: "oh.....................uh.........................no."

Tech: sigh

"If you connected at 115200, it would just blow your pants off."

Silky Smooth R.S., fellow tech

"My Guinea Pig taught her baby how to holler for lettuce, but she ain't too good at it yet."

"It's (her computer's) heart is just beating away!"

"Isn't that the cutest thing.... It's throwing it all in the trash bin!"

"Yeah, I'd like to get hooked up with a Sega Saturn." After finally coming up with a number for this guy to call, he responds with "Let me write that down, I been drinkin a little bit."

"This little box that says 'user name and password'; am I supposed to type something in there?"

"So in this box that says 'your name'; is that where I type my name in? I thought my e-mail went in there, I had 'em backerds."

Tech: "Click on 'My Computer'."

Cust: "How can I click on YOUR computer?"

I don't answer the phone for a living; I have a real job!

Does your brain start working like a computer now?

When I'm typing my e-mail, do I space between the words or jam it all together?

After the tech walks the customer through removing and reinstalling the modem, error messages still pop up saying "No response from the modem." The customer then says "So you think it's my modem?"

A classic: "Do I capitalize the zero?"

Tech: "Do you know where to put the addresses to different webpages?

Cust: "I don't think I have that version. I don't think my internet came with webpages."

Another of my favorites, to be taken in any context: "I don't know how to get it up."

"I was trying to get something off the intercourse."

Tech: "Where are you located?

Customer proceeds to give complete directions to their homestead, ending with "It's the second trailor on the right."

"What is an alphabetical character?"

"I hadn't hardly been able to get into you."