I woke up early this morning, which is even more surprising than usual because apparently this weekend everyone around here decided to set their clocks ahead an hour. Many mornings I wake up to the sound of my Yahoo! chat thingie announcing that it’s time for a little morning dialog with That Girl. Not this morning; my Internet has been down more than up lately and this morning it wasn’t even pretending to try to connect. Not a good sign. I thought maybe I was behind on paying, but I just got a bill and it’s not due yet. It mentions nothing of previous unpaid debts.
Out of habit I sat in front of my computer and stared at it for a little while. It seems my only morning ritual that doesn’t involve the Internet is making tea, which I drink while reading Web comics and checking for comments here. This morning I didn’t even make tea.
Sure, I could have picked up a book, or fired up Jer’s Novel Writer to do a little creative work of my own. I could have used my telephone to communicate with friends and contacts for “Moonlight Sonata”. I could have packed up my stuff, walked down the hill, and reacquainted myself with Café Fuzzy’s breakfast sandwich.
I did none of those things. Instead I fiddled with wires and the DSL box and whatnot, hoping for some magic combination that would bring the Internet back. I did not succeed. After two hours of alternating fiddling and staring blankly at the screen I had to admit to myself that Plan B was called for. A mere three hours after I woke up I stumbled into Little Café Near Home, just so I could tell you this little story.
