I'm Pretty Sure This Internet Outage Thing Is Going To Be The Death Of ONE Of Us!

If the coily cable doesn't bring me down, I'm pretty sure Farmer H is going to suffer greatly from my internet outage. We have the crucial part. It arrived on Wednesday. As I'm typing this, it's Friday night. That crucial part is still on the back of the couch. In its box. Right now I am suffering from internet outrage!

Here's the thing. Every Thursday night, I write a letter to Genius and The Pony. I've done it since Genius left for college back in 2013. Some of the week's news I can copy and paste, but I always have a part of the letter specific to each young 'un. Maybe about the lost brownie maker for The Pony, and La Croix flavored water for Genius.

Last night, at 11:30, I started the letter for Genius. By midnight, I was done. The envelopes were already addressed. I hit PRINT. And NOTHING HAPPENED! That's because the bad part of my internet is the hub. The hub that connects everything to the home network, I'm assuming. I'm not a computer genius, but when assorted wires have been switched around, and the only time I lose internet is when depending on something running through that hub...it seems to me that the hub is the problem. The hub whose replacement is sitting in its box on the back of the couch.

I had a bright idea, though! I figured I could connect my printer directly from New Delly. That's how I used to get a printer to work, you know. Plug it into my computer. So I got to looking at the connectors on the back of New Delly's tower, and the connections on the back of the printer. Well. I figured out what everything did on the back of New Delly. Which wires were mouse, external speakers, keyboard, main internet, and PRINTER!

I looked on the back of my printer. Easy peasy! It only had a power cord, and ONE other wire. A wire that looks like an ethernet cable. With the clicky lever thingy like a plug for a land line's wall jack. It runs along the top of my desk, and drops through the hole in the corner. Underneath, it connects to the bad hub. Then another wire comes up from the bad hub and connects to the back of New Delly's tower. That HAS to be the printer! All other wires are spoken for. But this one is a weirdo thingy like it has a bunch of bits and two little screw thingies. Huh. I can't crawl down under my desk and unplug that from the bad hub. Otherwise, I figure all I have to do is run the other end of that screw-bit wire to the printer directly.

So the contingency plan was to use my new wire that wasn't needed, the short 7-foot ethernet cable, from the back of New Delly's tower to the printer. Which I did. I unplugged the coily blue tripper wire, and put in my short black ethernet cable, and connected that to the printer, where I pulled out the ethernet-looking cable that runs across the desk and down to the bad hub.

Huh. New Delly didn't recognize the network! No dice. I didn't even get the message box that says the printer has a job waiting. Only a message box that said New Delly didn't recognize the network.

I guess Genius might have been able to talk me through it. Maybe something I had to do through settings, to make my printer run when it's not on the network. I just gave up, and wrote each boy a note by hand.

BUT HERE'S THE THING!

I tried to shame Farmer H into replacing the bad hub with the good hub. It will take about 5 minutes. It's plug and play. Unscrew the bad hub from the wall, screw on the new hub, and plug in three wires. Easy peasy! I'd do it myself if my knees were more cooperative about crawling on tile-over-concrete, and bending enough to get me up and down.

Can you believe my shaming tactic did not work? I'm sure you can. I told him how I certainly hoped the hub would be installed within a WEEK, because I couldn't print the boys' letters Thursday night.

In his little "Oh, you poor simpleton who can't do anything without my help" manner...Farmer H chuckled and said,

"Heh, heh. All you had to do was run that new black wire, the short one, from your computer to the printer."

Well. The joke is on him. Because that's EXACTLY what I did, even though he was too busy laughing at me to let me state that fact. It took three tries before he quit shaking his head and rolling his eyes and repeating the same thing, before I could tell him that was EXACTLY what I had done, and my computer did not recognize the new network.

All this happened while I was five steps down the 13 stairs to the basement, holding onto the banisters with one hand, clutching my supper tray in the other, because he just would not shut up and believe that I had done exactly what he was telling me would work.

I hope he enjoyed the colorful language that flowed back upstairs once I escaped. And that he enjoys seeing that unrecognized network message when I make him show me HOW that connection will make my printer work.

I'm not as dumb as he wants me to be.