I'M BACK

I’M BACK

But for how long?

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The interet was out again! Normally, during a storm, I can almost gaurantee the ‘net will blink on and off and most often, for no longer than thirty minutes.

This time, it was out for almost thirty HOURS!!

We are so thoroughly hooked on the internet, it’s hard to imagine ourselves without it and yet, here we were, offline for almost two full days.

You don’t realize how important being online is until you’re not. We communicate via email and social media. Most of us pay our bills online. Being online is how many of use work. Even if we have a hobby that might offer us a few extra dollars, being online is important.

How in heaven’s name did we go from being normal to being internet dependent?

We thought with the rise of something mechanical that was supposed to be smarter than the average person, would, therefore, make our lives easier. Yeah, so we thought!

I know there are many others like me. I’m good at writing, spelling, and story tellling. However, I’m extremely pathetic when it comes to math. I always was and now in my golden years, I doubt I’ll ever change.

When the internet came along and offered me a chance to create a spreadsheet to keep track of daily items (doctors’ appointments, reordering medications, checking my bank balance online, pay bills, etc.), I jumped at the chance. Yippee!! All I have to do is type in my information, login and password, and the comptuer will do the rest. Right?

It will as long as the (expletive) internet is working.

The other day, I’d been busy doing other things than being online. Finally, about two in the afternoon, I needed to check what bills had been delevered to my email address.

Well, hell! No email! I knew my email was working that morning. I tried going online. Nothing! Nada! No service!

I called the internet provider. My first six calls went unanswered. Just a steady ringing.

Thinking the system might be overloaded, I unplugged the modem and let it sit for the normal 60-seconds requirement for it to reset. (They always tell you that ten seconds is adequate but I found sixty is better).

Plugging it back in, now I need to wait for it to reboot. (Ugh!! That seems like it would take forever.)

Ah, the little green lights are flickering. Wait! One is still off. What the heck?? That little light just turned RED! NOOOOO. That’s not supposed to happen. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough for the system to reboot. I’ll try again.

Three hours later, I give up! That stupid little light absolutely refuses to turn green. My cell phone rings. It’s my friend around the corner.

“OMG! I’m going crazy,” I hear.

“Why, what’s going on?” I know after a long grieving, she just began doing out and wondered if she was having secod thought on accepting a dinner date.

“First I need to ask yu have (won’t name names, here) for your internet provider.”

I told her I did.

“Have you tried to get on today?” I could hear the frustration in her voice.

“Yeah, for the past four hours with no luck. I tried a few times calling their support number but then, just got busy with other things and forgot. Why? What’s going on?”

“I guess you’re away why they’re diggiing up the street around the corner, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, they supposed to be replacing some fiber optic line or something.”

She informed me, “That and they’re also replacing some really old cable lines for the internet. AND GUESS WHAT?” she almost shouted in my ear.

“What?” I asked a bit hesitantly not sure if I wanted to hear what she had to say.

“The diggers accidentally sliced through the wrong cable! I was told they’re not sure how long it will take to fix. They said maybe, if we’re lucky, sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

Well, to make a long story short, we finally got our internet back on a full 28 hours later! Yeah, you read right. TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS!

I really felt bad for those people, in business, private business, or just those who enjoy ssocial media type stuff that use the internet constantly. I’m sure many of the business in the immediate area lost money.

Will we ever see a refune? Nope! We have to have had to call informing the compay of the outage, keep track of how many hours we had no service, then call again notifiying the company the survice was back on. In other words, do their work for them. Who the heck has time for that?

I’d rather just get this story written and posted, and hopefully, make a bit of money from my writing.

Once I post this, I can quit my griping and get back to the story I started before the ‘net wient down.

So much for making our lives easier.