The Internet is Down

I came home late last night to an alarmed family. There was no smoke in the air. No ambulance had to be called. No one was even in pain. Everyone, however, was in great distress because the internet was down. Yes, it was Cyber Monday and the internet was down. You would have thought the world was ending. I didn’t even have my coat off before the problem was brought to my attention. Without the internet, the wireless in the house was out. That meant no one’s tablets had connection and phones had to use the costly data package to surf the web. So I ate something and then set to work on the problem. As I was troubleshooting it I began to realize just how dependent on the internet we have become. It is used for more than just shopping. We use it for banking, staying in touch with relatives and friends, social media, homework, news, movie listings, weather forecasts, researching information, tax preparation, music and a host of other things. Think about it for a moment. What would you do without your internet? My children have yet to even figure out how to use a telephone book. They have grown up with looking numbers up on line. I have tried to teach them how a phone book works but apparently it is too much work. Well guess what I had to do to get the problem solved? Since the internet was down, I had to actually look up the number of my internet provider in the phone book so I could call their help line. The home phone was out because it was somehow connected to the internet so I had to use you cell phone. I dialed all the numbers to get me to a real person and then I started the troubleshooting process. They always ask if the lines are secured tightly but I rarely crawl under the desk to check. Of all the times I have called for help, the wires were never loose. Eventually we discovered that the modem needed to be reset. After 15 minutes the system was back up and the world could continue spinning. Remember how slow dial-up used to be? I don’t think my kids have the patience to wait for such a slow connection. When it was the only thing, though, it was blazing fast. Times sure do change. It’s a good thing we have the internet to tell us what is going on.