Confrusticated Totally

Hello Lovelies

It has been almost three months since the cyber freeway to the world wide web fell over in our nook of  the blogosphere.  How bad was it?  We say bring back dial up.  The journey continues and we are learning how to be nice in both words and tone when telling our story to person number seven to any given query.

In fairness to our ISP they did recommend we swap ISPs when they were no longer provide a viable service (our speeds ranged between 2 and 5 kbps).  We did some research and found a company who were 100% certain they could restore happiness.  And so the head-banging began.

Would they listen?  No they would not?  Was the MOTH (Man of the House) correct when he told them by switching our phone to a new service provider our internet would be disconnected?  Yes, he was.  But they listened not, those offshore tele-technicians of whom we are envious as they enjoy third world internet access.   Now we are adrift and rudderless, floundering for strategies to cope with symptoms of internet withdrawal: irritability, mood swings, anger.  How did we become so dependent on this tenuous link to the world?  How did we get to be such a sad pair of grey geeks?

It’s hard not to reminesce about the good old days of dial-up internet.  Where does time go?  Our first child was two – he is now thirty-one – when he spent ten minute time slots learning Mother Goose Nursery Rhymns, while his mother did household chores (all ten minute activities) .  He was intuitive around the keyboard.  Our first IBM computer had no hard drive and two gaping slots for 5 1/4” disks from which the games were loaded.  Some years later we upgraded to a computer that took 3 1/2” discs with a 1.2MG storage capacity – Oi vey, the speed!

Then a machine with an internal hard drive.  We thought we’d died and gone to heaven.  But maybe not, because with this suave technology came Microsoft’s ubiquitous big blue screen of death.  Crashes were no longer limited to vehicles and we learned a whole new set of coping skills, we are resilient.  Next came bugs, but not the garden variety and we ran for Norton’s shield of protection.  Oh yes, my Lovelies, we built fire walls and screens to keep us safe and we defragged, debugged and the louses kowtowed.  But we were not out of the woods.

And when we thought we doing okay, along came user names and log ins and passwords which stole our peace and calm.  No pac-man for you without NASA-proud codes and clicks.

OMG … our internet has been disconnected and with it my email address that helps to verify my forgotten passwords and user names (wringing hands already).

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And this is where we are today.  We have a landline telephone and in four to five working days the new ISP will punch in some codes from their end that will connect the internet once more.  If the codes do work then a modem will be despatched and may be here by the middle of this month … or not.  And if the codes do not work … yes, that is panic you hear.

So we’re becoming acquainted with our library once more.  The place we used to borrow real books.  Except now we have to remember our library ID and password which opens not only the library catalogue but internet access from library computers to the world wide web.  Connection.  Aaah – and it feels good.

Breath in.  Breath out.

Keep calm.  Drink coffee.

Until the library doors open again – stay well.