(Dis)connected

Like everyone else living in the 21^st century, I spend most of my days plugged in. I rely on the internet for everything, from shopping to classes, from talking with friends to earning a living, from morning until night. Computers make up the majority of my livelihood and I am perhaps more intimately acquainted with my Macbook than with any other item I have now or have ever had in my possession. While I previously prided myself on restricting my internet access to my laptop and choosing not to put it on my phone, I am now violently kicking myself in remorse over that long ago decision. Why did my past self ever desire disconnection from the life giving internet? It was only 30 bucks a month, 30 bucks I could have saved on gas by looking up more fuel efficient routes on my phone! No, I told my ignorant, naïve self, that’s what I had a GPS for. Couldn’t I have foreseen the eventual event that would require 3G through which to tether? Oh how our flaws are so glaringly exposed in the light of an internetless laptop at 2 in the morning, through the lens of crystal 20/20 hindsight.


It appears that after many faithful years of service, my cable modem, my physical cable line or possibly both have died a violent and untimely dearth. Due to the laws of probability conflicting with the more powerful law of Murphy, this astronomical event occurred precisely as I was completing a single admittance online exam. Following the aforementioned law, this exam, which just became available to take today, is due tomorrow, November 7^th, and Time Warner cannot send a technician till the 8^th.  I am one of those annoying people who compulsively turns in extra credit even when I already have 104% in the class, the possibility that I might not complete an exam is outside the realm of my comprehension. Unfortunately, I am also one of those people who bombed physics but want to go to medical school so I cannot afford to have another a bad grade in my GPA.

What good is the knowledge of how to fix a computer when you a have an unfixable problem? When the closest solution lies in a new modem at the Time Warner offices in Culver City, or up the telephone pole in the backyard that you shouldn’t be climbing at 2am? Why did you take physics when you should have been taking cable internet maintenance?? The little green lights blink a mockery at me while the customer service representative in China reads the same apology off her script for the third time, “I am sorry ma’am for the disappointment this event has caused you”. Yes, Chinese customer service representative, I very am disappointed though that would not be my first choice of vocabulary. I do not anticipate that I will be “havin’ a good one” tonight.