A Series Of Unbelievable Events

...continued from A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Telephone.

When we last convened around the campfire, listening to Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's tale of intrigue, and listening for that hook-armed escaped lunatic lurking just out of sight in the damp darkness along the treeline...Farmer H had just picked up the second call from a member of the weaker sex, whose name and accent suggested a tie to the land of vodka, nesting dolls, and cold tomato soup. The voice on the answering machine sounded very much like Sigourney Weaver in Heartbreakers, the scenes where she ate steak tartar with Gene Hackman in the glow of onion-shaped table lamps, smiled vacuously at the waiter who asked if she would like his big sausage on her plate, and haggled with housekeeper Nora Dunn just before setting her up to take the fall as a cigarette thief. Even though there is a dearth of good parts in Hollywood for women of age, I doubt that Sigourney has fallen on such hard times that she needs to pick up spare change on a Sunday morning by prank-calling Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. She comes from money, you know.

About three hours of taxing and feeding and 44-oz.-Diet-Coke-picking-up later, I sat down for a break of sipping and surfing. The internet, of course. I'm no beach bunny. I started with my laptop screen, to connect my internet. I swiped my finger across the mouse pad, expecting that greeny bamboo forest with my little black-and-yellow box for connection, AND GOT THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!

I shouted for the #1 son. He's my emergency responder. The blue screen box was ticking like a time bomb. In X number of seconds, something was going to happen to my sweet Shiba. #1 said to let her go. That she'd fix herself. I was beside myself. Never once, during our four-year partnership, has Shiba let herself go like that. I have no idea how long she had been down. Shortly, Shiba was restored. She LOOKED normal. I waited a minute or so for good measure. Then I connected. Took a trial run on Shiba. All systems were go. I hailed The Pony to carry my precious elixir down the stairs. No need to take unnecessary chances.

My desktop, New Delly, was not like I left him the night before. I close out the windows, leaving only my documents open. Yet there they were, chugging along, my Zune, my blogs, and my Gmail. That so did not happen. Impossible. I closed those windows and went to open up new ones. My internet did not work. I did a restart. My internet did not work. I sounded the alarm. Emergency Responder #1 roared in, wailing like a siren. He elbowed me aside like Nick Burns, Your Company Computer Guy. Clicked and clacked upon my keyboard like a crazed court stenographer. "There." He was gone faster than a freshman from a classroom when the lunch bell rings.

My internet still did not connect. ER#1 fiddled with Shiba and New Delly once again. Said he did not know what was wrong. I called shenanigans. "Mom! What do you expect me to do, PERFORM A MIRACLE?" Such drama from the boy who would be a certified genius in computer systems and software.

"Oh. That's okay. No internet, no taxes, no FAFSA. I can't do anything without my internet."

I spied him back at the old Shiba drawing board. Ten minutes later, I had internet once more. Funny how he says there is no way that government spying and tampering could occur with my internet set-up. But I ask you...when was the last time, in the span of three hours, you went to a conspiracy website, received two calls from a foreign operative asking for a person you KNOW but have nothing in common with besides a geographic location, had your laptop give up the ghost, and developed a bug in your LAN that almost stumped a technology virtuoso?

I rest my case.