Disconnect

By combining gossamer wisps of faded memories with good old-fashion logic I know that I once lived in a time when there was no Internet. That time now seems vague and nebulous and I can no longer recall any of the specifics of that long ago epoch. In fact, until yesterday I couldn’t even begin to imagine what life must have been like under those harsh and inhospitable conditions.

Science tells us that between the time that primitive man communicated by drawing on cave walls and the birth of the World Wide Web there was indeed a middle time, an era of newspapers and letter writing and telephones with cords. I’ve had a taste of that barbaric existence over the last twenty-four hours and even for that short amount of time I can confirm that it was nothing less than a horrifying experience. I can’t even begin to imagine the hellish torture of having to live that way all the time. And yet I’m told that I once did.

Yesterday morning both my Internet and e-mail services went out. This has happened before, but, after I spend an uneasy hour or two, the service usually comes back on.. This time was different. I had gone to visit a friend (And you thought I didn’t have any!) in Santa Cruz and found upon my return eight hours later that I was still disconnected. This new reality was, as you can imagine, somewhat disconcerting, but still I somehow managed to go to sleep in a positive state of mind, with visions of e-mails and porn sites dancing in my head. I awoke full of hope the next morning and found that, to my unspeakable horror, the computer had not healed overnight.

I soon grasped the seriousness of my situation and a tingle of fear ran up my spine like an electric shock. I was disconnected. What was I to do? How was I going to stay in touch with what amounted to basically every aspect of my life? Pressing questions began to whirl restlessly inside my head. What time does the A’s game start? How is the dollar holding up versus the Euro? Did Uncle Duke in Doonesbury relocate to Louisiana? Did that cute chick in Pleasanton send me an e-mail? Has Bush been indicted yet? Where is that new movie playing? How did my 401K do yesterday? What’s the current temperature in Paris?

With shaking hands I immediately picked up the phone and called my old chums at Comcast, who told me that they would send a technician out tomorrow to get me back on-line. Tomorrow! That would mean going forty-eight hours without the Internet. Forty-eight hours in a row! I can’t live like that--I’m not an animal!

This devastating disconnect from the world lead me to take drastic action. Seeing no other alternative I forced myself to turn off my crippled computer, put on some shoes and go outside! The brilliant sunshine and vivid blue sky seemed to be mocking me as I headed for the beach. I walked barefoot along the sand, explored tide-pools and gathered several shells that I found particularly unique. Later I sat on a dune of sugar-like sand and gazed at the sparkling and almost painfully blue ocean water while listening to the crashing of the white-capped waves. I inhaled the sea air deeply and leaned back on my elbows. I knew then that I was feeling the rhythm of the Earth, the very pulse of existence and, bathed in warm sunshine in that idyllic setting, I couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly are the next three movies on my choice list at NetFlix.com?

After doing some shopping I returned home to a miracle. The message on my answering machine told me that Comcast had discovered that the problem was not simply with my connection, but had occurred over a wide area. And they were canceling my appointment because they had already fixed the problem. Could this be true?

I dropped the bags of groceries on or near the counter. Melting ice cream, squashed fruit, broken glass, --I would deal with that later. Right now I had to attend to bigger issues. I switched on the computer, the screen flickered and the world poured in. There were my stock quotes, my news, my baseball schedule, my maps, my movies reviews, my e-mail from the cute chick in Pleasanton, my comics, and the entire collected knowledge of Mankind just waiting to be retrieved with a few clicks on my keyboard. Anything I needed to know was right there. I could even search to find out exactly what type of shells I had just brought back from the beach. And I would do that, eventually. But first I really needed to check on my movie list over at NetFlix.