My internet has been restored. You’ll never guess what was wrong, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you — it was in a car accident. Yep. That’s right. A car accident.
Unlike most of my friends who have switched to a localized internet company that uses fiber optics, I still have the internet I started with. The cable is adequate for my needs — just about the only thing that might suffer a bit from the slower internet speed is the hidden object game I play, but even that’s not an issue since I’m getting a bit bored with it. Anyway, that doesn’t have anything to do with my outage except to explain how a car could destroy my internet connection — this company still has the green cable utility box in the alley, and apparently, someone ran into it and destroyed it.
Since I am the only one who was affected, it leads me to believe that most people on this block who have internet have gone with the fiber optic choice, but I intend to continue dealing with the original company, as annoying as they are. My rate is locked in for as long as I live here, and since I don’t intend to move until I’m dragged out, I figure that static price will be a good revenge for any problems. Not that I have many problems — this is the first real outage I’ve experienced in the past four years.
When they told me it would be a week before they could restore service, I panicked because I spend (waste) a lot of time on the internet, and I had no idea what I would do with all that extra time. As it turns out, it wasn’t a problem at all. I mowed my lawn, did some gardening, gave my house a good cleaning, read books, watched movies on DVDs friends had passed on to me that I never watched (I hadn’t watched a movie in years), did one of the paint-by-number pictures I’d been given as a gift, walked some, exercised some. And then suddenly, here I am, with the internet again.
When I was without service, I discovered that one of the reasons I was online so much was that I’d get bored and restless when I read too much, and it was just habit to go on the internet to play games or look up gardening information or whatever. So now I have other options. Well, I always had those other options, I just didn’t make use of them. Chances are, I’ll go back to my old habits, but for now, it’s nice to be offline most of the time.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.
Bertram's Blog 
May 18, 2023 at 12:14 pm
I’m glad you got your internet fixed. I understand the frustration when you don’t have it. I’ve had a few brief outages over the years.
May 19, 2023 at 7:27 am
This was the longest outage I ever had, though come to think of it, when I was on my trip, the only internet I had was on my phone, and I did just fine.
May 18, 2023 at 12:26 pm
It’s always such a relief when services are restored and we can return to familiar routines. We don’t have a house phone any more, just two aging cell phones, and my hubby’s had been dropping phone calls at unexpected moments. It would work again for a short while after rebooting, but was becoming exasperating, so yesterday we broke down and bought a new one for him. While it’s not the most up-to-date model, it’s a significant upgrade and the apps don’t work the same as his old phone. So far I haven’t managed to get one of his email accounts to show up on it, and it’s driving me crazy. It should be so easy! It’s not as if he can’t access it on his computer, but he’s accustomed to having access wherever he goes. Isn’t it wild how attached we can become to technology?
May 19, 2023 at 7:26 am
Definitely wild! It’s not just that we become attached to technology, it’s that it becomes attached to us. It’s hard to navigate this current world without it.
May 18, 2023 at 1:56 pm
I’m glad you got your service back just about the time you learned you can live without it. I can live without it, too, but I don’t want to.
May 19, 2023 at 7:20 am
Same here. It’s just too convenient and enjoyable.