This morning I woke up without internet.  You wouldn’t think that’d be such a big deal, given that I lived for years in the internet age without it.

HAHAHAHA . . . yeah, right.

Anyway, we’d had storms with very high winds last night, so I figured service was out. I called the provider; normally if there’s service problems I’ll get a recorded message first thing. Ah, the wonders of automated systems being able to match the phone number one is calling from with a street address. Wait, not wonderful . . . scary. But, since I assume someone is watching everything anyway, I just deal.

No message. Time to check billing, even though I know I paid it through the miracle of automatic payments. Yep, “Thank you for your recent payment of . . . ”

Which now meant I had to press that button to get transferred to a technician. I’m always afraid I’ll wait a very long time only to sound unintelligent. I’ve been an unofficial troubleshooter for several years; I learn from what’s gone wrong and scour Google. So, I’d tried the normal fixes before even calling the service.

Mercifully, I didn’t even have to wait; a technician picked up before I could even get another automated message. And then I heard those words:

Yes, yes I have.

Have you unscrewed the coax cable?

Why no, that’s something new.

Unscrew the coax, unplug the device, wait a minute – not the usual 15 seconds – and plug it back in. When you plug it back in it’ll take 2-3 minutes to fully reboot.

OK Sir, I’m getting good responses on my end, do you have connectivity on your end?

IT LIVES!

Now, dear readers, I can go online, read all your wonderful blogs, look at (and post) cat pictures, and watch the world burn. Then, look at cat pictures some more.

Have a great day!

---

Oh, I almost forgot. I just realized that Bill Cipher – villain of Gravity Falls and pictured in the featured image – looks very much like the “No Internet” symbol. I wonder if that was intentional?