Finally, rescue.  I felt pretty hopeless about the situation, given the lack of success encountered by no fewer than six consultations and efforts on the part of Bell Sympatico technicians to restore my email connectivity.  While all of the technicians with whom I was connected through the technical assistance protocol established by Sympatico seemed genuinely invested in finding the problem, none had succeeded.

Saturday after I spent three exhausting hours on the telephone witnessing one technician who had sounded so confident at the start of the exercise, finally exhaust all his technical resources, my hope for a fix was in the doldrums.  As far as he was concerned everything appeared technically in order, he was not able to rectify the problem because he was unable to identify it.  He apologized and sounded utterly regretful; I felt for him.

On Sunday I tried a few things on my own but nothing worked, and as a result I had no option but to resort to asking the experts for their help once again.  I had just logged on to the Sympatico site, made contact through "livetalk" with one of these professionals and was just on the cusp of authorizing her to take over control of my computer, when the telephone rang.

When I answered the call, the caller identified himself as a Bell Sympatico technician, responding to a written message and further request for assistance I had made earlier in the day online, which had completely slipped my mind.  I felt in a quandary, not knowing how to proceed, whether with his help or that of the remote-connected technician I was about to authorize for control.  The issue was solved when that connection timed out and the man to whom I spoke assured me he could solve my problem.

I was beyond skeptical, but grateful nonetheless to have the attention of someone who professed to be technically proficient, and set about authorizing him control of the computer.  It took this man no time at all - mere minutes - to pinpoint the problem, rectify it and restore my email connection.  Evidently this had all been caused by the helpfulness of a young neighbour whom I had asked for help in setting up an email account on my newly-acquired computer and whose manipulation of the parameters had been a trifle deficient; enough so to disrupt my email flow completely.

Problem finally solved; moreover this technician, who hailed from El Salvador, swiftly installed a new working email program on my new computer, as well, something I had hesitated to undertake myself until the problem with the old computer upstairs had been solved.  I felt immensely grateful to him, told him so, and informed him he had solved an issue that defied the experience of so many others before him. 

And he guffawed when I remarked that that old adage "Jesus saves" must be so, for this was, in fact, his given name.