My phone and internet went out Tuesday evening without any warning. I was in the middle of watching a cultural enrichment video from the Netherlands (one that involved migrant gangs battling it out in the streets), when suddenly the video stopped, and the little wheel started turning around and around in the center of the picture. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that the connection had gone out.
A gentle rain was falling outside, and had been for most of the day. It wasn’t a hurricane. There was no wind. No thunder or lightning. Just gentle rain, falling steadily. Nothing significant, but that was apparently too much for the phone company’s equipment. There was no voice, no internet, and nothing to do but wait. I made supper and started binge-watching old Justified videos, which I hadn’t looked at in five or six years.
When I woke up yesterday morning the internet was still out. So I went grocery shopping — took my time, drank some coffee. When I came home, there was still no internet. There was only so much binge-watching I could do, so I caught up on about six months’ worth of accounting, and then listened to music until bedtime.
When I got up this morning there was still no phone or internet. I ate a leisurely breakfast, and right after I finished washing the dishes, the phone and internet came back on, coincidentally just as the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in two days. The demons that had been holding back the electrons in the wires must have had an aversion to the light.
When the signal returned, I was just getting ready to drive down the road to use someone’s phone to call in a trouble ticket with the phone company. I’m relieved I didn’t have to do that, because it would have meant an interminable time on hold listing to horrible music, then a series of robot menus, and finally a lengthy conversation with Jamshid in Dhaka, who is always terribly difficult to understand.
I’ve got a lot to catch up on. A huge backlog of email awaits me. There will be a news feed tonight.
Unless, of course, the internet goes out again.
“I was just getting ready to drive down the road to use someone’s phone to call in a trouble ticket with the phone company. I’m relieved I didn’t have to do that, because it would have meant an interminable time on hold listing to horrible music, then a series of robot menus, and finally a lengthy conversation with Jamshid in Dhaka, who is always terribly difficult to understand.”
It never ceases to amaze me how we’ve been trained to tolerate being treated like cows left unattended in a pasture of frequently inoperative grass.
p.s. Jamshid’s in Mumbai, which lionizes THEIR cows. But whatever..
No, Arjuna is in Mumbai. Jamshid is in Bangladesh. And Abdullah is in Karachi.