So, I've discovered that the quickest and easiest way for me to feel like a living, breathing god is for me to solve my own Internet problems. I was working at a pretty good clip, late Sunday night. I had my website projected up on the living room wall, designing away -- trying to make myself seem like the coolest chick to ever live. Like The Fonz with breasts. "Ayyyyy." I had Netflix going on my iPhone, because silence to me is a creativity killer, and I was bouncing between writing and playing The Sims FreePlay on my iPad but we're just going to brush over that last part and pretend I never mentioned it.
All of a sudden, it went dark. Not the lights or anything...even worse. My internet.
It hit my iPad first -- it always does. The Netflix on my phone was still playing fine but when I went to access my game I was told the server was fucking off somewhere. I could see all of the lights on my router were a lovely shade of green. The steady ones are steady and the blinky ones, blinking. But by the time my brain processed this, the Stone Age had hit my phone and the computer.
I hit a button on the front of my router that, quite frankly, I knew nothing about except that it helped me out on a couple of Internet outage occasions. Tonight though, it flipped me the bird. So, I went back to my phone, switched off wifi and did a little internet search to see if our provider was, you know, having problems and crap. I was like fucking Jessica Fletcher the way I was investigating my little problem.
Unfortunately, I learned nothing. I knew the problem couldn't be on our end, we had recently signed onto the forgetful consumer's friend "auto-pay", so we were all good in that area. Which meant...
I was going to have to fucking mess with the router and try to fix this myself. Now, let me quickly explain to you that I fucking suck at technology. Case in point, I have never been able to keep a printer. I kill them. Like, you know how before Paul Anka, everyone was afraid of Lorelai Gilmore having pets? I'm like that with printers. If I'm lucky, I can hook them up and successfully complete the printer test. Maybe, I can print a couple of documents. But sometime, around month 3, things go downhill quickly and before I know it, I'm once again printer-less. Basically, if you have a printer at work or home that's on it's last leg, just leave it in my care and it will go quickly and peacefully and never have a chance to realize what's happening.
Now, we'd been in our new place for six months and I had never once had to reset the router which basically made it the best goddamn place in the world. I tried pressing that magic button on the front of the router again and, like before, nothing happened. So, I turned the sucker around to check out the back. I noticed two things right away: there was a power switch and a reset button. Now, this paralyzed me at first. Fuck, I want to reset it, right? I shouldn't just turn it off and back on again, right? Probably not. Now, the reset button was set inside the back of the router so I was gonna have to poke it with something in order to reach it. This extra step said to me that pressing this button was a big damn deal. They didn't want you to just hit it by accident. Clearly if that happens, you mistakingly bomb a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan.
After much debating, I decided to take my chances and poked the button with a twist tie I found on the coffee table. I closed one eye (I'd've closed both but then I wouldn't be able to tell if it was resetting) and held my breath and waited.
And like the goddamn genie in Aladdin, like Zeus himself or Dr. Frankenstein, I controlled the very essence of life. The lights came back on, one by one. The steady ones went steady and the blinky ones blinked. I went to my devices and each one expertly accessed the internet and took me to exactly where I wanted to be. Criminal Minds played on my Netflix once again. Thank God the serial killers were back.
I was badass today. I was Whoopi Goldberg in goddamn Ghost and Patrick Swayze was my wifi. I was channeling that shit. My website was going to be perfect. I was going to be witty and pithy and my picture was going to make people want to be my friend. "Oh my god, she's quirky AND funny! I bet she's a riot to hang with!" Yes. Yes, I am.
That's right, Internet. I have powers.
Never mind that printer sitting ten feet away that has beaten me before we've even begun. I'll get the cord you need to work, you bastard. I'll get the right cord and then you'll be my bitch, too.
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