I've been conducting something akin to a science lab experiment for the last six months and I can now safely conclude that it has been nothing short of a monumental failure, a colossal catastrophe and several other adjective/noun combos unfit for print.

And I can't help but find it uproariously funny.

Our story begins about two-thirds of the way through another glorious New York springtime. On May 21, seven days after graduating from college and five days after starting my job at The Crier, I moved into a single-occupancy apartment in Milford.

As expected, I took the various steps and missteps one takes when moving into an area; I set up a post office box and bank account; I sold my soul (or possibly just filled out a few short applications) in order to get discount cards for the local supermarkets; And I commanded Time Warner to plug me into the internet.

But, as my parents were keen to remind me during my weekend treks home to Stamford to pick up various possessions, I had neglected to set up phone service.

From my perspective, this was far from the pressing issue they declared it to be. I'm a child of the internet and it's well known among my friends that I abhor cell phones, so I utilize e-mail and instant messaging to contact them far more regularly than I use phones. Thus, a phone in my apartment would probably only be used to receive ridiculous pitches from salesmen, calls into work from my boss or irate memos from my mom and dad.

Suffice to say, I was less than proactive in getting service.

Eventually, however, I caved and set up an account with Vonage, the broadband phone company, about a month after moving in. I don't pretend to know exactly how it works, but after plugging in my phone and cable modem into an electronic doohickey they sent out, I had service.

At least, that was the theory.

In reality, whenever I used the thing I had to endure about a 45-second wait before I would hear a click and the service would function properly. This wasn't a problem when I dialed out because, as I said, I don't do so often and the wait was just long enough for me to compose an eloquent greeting.

Answering calls was another story. While I could hear the other person clear as day, they could hear almost nothing until the magical click occurred. I'm told it sounded as if I were calling from China or the bottom of the ocean.

So for the first 30 to 45 seconds of every phone call I received, I listened to awkward silence. Or, more accurately, I filled the awkward silence with sounds only I could hear.

Sometimes I bellowed in an effort to alert them not to hang up. Other times I sang, because hey, why not? A few times I swore profusely at whoever happened to be calling, not because I was angry about the situation, but because it's a hoot and a half to cuss at oblivious people.

And so it went for approximately three months until one fateful day in September.

I picked up the phone to make a call and heard a woman's voice say something about my phone being plugged into the wrong port. And then there was nothing. No dial tone, no beeps or bloops, nothing.

Baffled, I fiddled with the cables for a little bit, plugging the phone into each of the only two ports that existed, all to no avail. Only silence greeted my plaintive stare.

At this point I decided the best solution to this problem was to ignore it. Maybe it was mad at me for using it so little and it just needed time to cool off. Or maybe, like most things involving the internet, it simply decided to stop working for a while.

About two weeks ago, I finally began trying to resolve the situation. I called their customer service line and, of course, spoke to someone from India or wherever non-English speaking country they outsource jobs to these days. Although I had trouble cutting through his accent, I very clearly understood the first thing he asked me.

"Please unplug your modem and power off your phone adapter."

"Well friend," I politely responded, "I'm not actually anywhere near my phone or cable modem at this time. If I were able to call you from there, we wouldn't need to have this conversation would we."

At least, that's what I imagined myself saying. Shortly after the dumbfounded silence that followed his first proclamation, he suggested powering down the various computer devices involved with this sordid affair. I mumbled thanks and followed his instructions later that night fully expecting abject failure. Happily, I was not let down.

I tried calling again the next week and got more detailed instructions - which didn't work - and then followed several sets of instructions on their internet help page, none of which worked. Not exactly surprising since the response to every possible problem scenario they pose was responded to with one of several complex variations on the "reboot your system" theme.

Three months, a couple headaches and 25 missed phone calls later, I'm finally cutting my losses and canceling the service. So ends the great internet phone debacle of 2005.

Of course, it hasn't ended just yet. One of the cool things about an internet phone service is that messages left on my voicemail can be downloaded from my account on the Vonage website, even if I can't answer or make calls using the phone.

My service is paid through Dec. 16. My phone number is 607-330-0210 (don't bother asking why it's a Utica number). Best message gets a prize of some indeterminate (and probably non-existent) nature.

Most likely a disconnected congratulatory call when my next phone service fails to function.