Modern technology: it giveth, and when it doesn’t work, it taketh all joy away.
Considering how remotely we live, the WiFi is good here. Without it, the appeal of living in paradise would quickly pale. Thus, we are grateful that our signal is strong. Until, it isn’t. And that’s when the world ends, according to our family. Because D & I rely on WiFi for work so heavily, we have internet accounts from two different suppliers. This way, if one is faulty, the other picks up the slack. This morning, the strength of both our Wifi signals were dismal, and much of my work was lost to the black hole in the tech cosmos. I tend to lose my patience with technical situations like this. D, on the other hand, has the patience of a saint, and spends his time fiddling with modems, to see if he can solve the situation.
When Wi-Fi stops, so does our entire life. Our browsers present the circle of doom, ‘Gossip Girl’ on A’s Netflix profile freezes, B’s Xbox stops responding, our phones revert to data plans. Everything buffers at the same time, resulting in the teens coming downstairs to complain that their entire livelihoods have now been comprised. “I need access to information so that I can be smarter, and better informed.” asserts B. He omits mention of the FIFA game he was playing online. This is a crisis, we are told, because A can’t log on to retrieve revision notes, and B can’t access his university portal to submit his assignment. No one is as dedicated to their studies as my children are, on the day that they cannot study because of WiFi problems. “I am going to fail my degree!” says B, ‘I may as well just drop out of university now!”
“He is so your son,” says D to me.
Kids in general tend to have a reputation to throw a temper tantrum when the internet is down. One Youtuber recorded his son throwing a wobbly, sobbing his tiny heart out, when the hotel they were staying in changed its internet credentials. “Why are you crying ?” asks the Dad. “Because the internet is dead!” the kids wails, with nearly no hope left in his voice. The 14 second clip got over 28K hits from folks who can relate to this little guy.
For anyone who has similarly experienced the unfair disappearance of fickle wifi access beyond our control, you know the universal power of technology-related helpless rage is real. Luckily D’s fiddling with modems finally worked, and order was restored.
Peace on earth reigneth once more.