Part 1:
Curmudgeon Compound has gone from “deliberately removed from the daily hurly burly” to “totally off line”. I theorize a squirrel ate a switch in a transformer somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I can only hope the little bastard is fried to a crisp because I’ve been kaput for days.
The phone company is hard at work and they’re doing their bureaucratic best to turn it into an opera. I’m told a crack team of high end specialists will have it fixed in a week or so… unless they don’t.
I’m not too worried. I’ve been ignoring politics mostly and there’s no shortage of beer to drink and stuff to do. Life is fine on a homestead without the Internet until I use up my pre-downloaded Kindle backlog . I do miss Netflix though. Suddenly Blockbusters has gone from a laughably out of date idea to entirely logical. Though I don’t even know if Blockbusters exists. I can’t be a common market niche and I’ll go back to laughing at them as soon as my broadband is back.
The whole moment is steeped in irony. I called “the big high tech company for reports on their snail crawl”. I did this using a decrepit $9 “disposable” cell phone which is running like a flawless product of the industrial revolution. Charitably I can pretend my landline company is giving me a free EMP attack drill.
Part 2:
I got a call to my top secret cell phone. The one with a number so unlisted that only my dog and a few others have it. It was my single reader who knows the number.
Curmudgeon, “Curmudgeon’s phone, if nobody is bleeding it’s not an emergency and I’m going to hang up on you.”
Friendly Reader, “Did you just post Shatner on acid?”
Quoth the Curmudgeon, “I didn’t post shit. It’s the 1880’s here.”
Friendly Reader, “A big floating pair of lips? Mutilating Freddy Mercury? Bohemian Rhapsody?”
Something clicked. “Oh yeah. I was halfway though a bottle of wine a few weeks back. It was so funky I couldn’t even tell if it was ironic or stone cold serious. It amused me. So I posted it on ‘autopilot’. It won’t go live for weeks. I’ll probably pull it first.”
Friendly Reader, “You ‘autopiloted it’ a couple weeks ago.”
Curmudgeon, “Yeah I guess.”
Friendly Reader, “And now it’s a couple weeks later…”
Curmudgeon, “Yeah but I’ll probably pull it. I’m sober now and… uh oh…”
Friendly Reader, “You did! It’s there. In all it’s Shatneriffic glory.”
Curmudgeon, desperately trying to remember through the haze of wine and time, “Umm…”
Friendly Reader, “Just for this I’m going to drive to your house and kick your woodpile over.”
Curmudgeon, “Er… It was funny! Wasn’t there a freedom song too. That was awesome!”
Friendly Reader, “Yes, I liked Hard and Phirm but that does not excuse releasing the Shatner. You were wasted. That’s the only explanation.”
Curmudgeon, “Let’s stick with that.”
Friendly Reader, “So log on and pull it dummy.”
Curmudgeon, “Well there’s no internet here. A squirrel probably ate…”
Friendly Reader, “You’re a blogger without the internet?”
Curmudgeon, “Ironic no?”
Friendly Reader, “Drive your ass to wifi somewhere and make it right.”
Curmudgeon, “What if I just explain my internet is down? After all I kinda’ like it when Shatner gets weird.”
Friendly Reader, sighing, “OK fine. The internet has seen worse. But when your hit count goes negative I want you to know it was self inflicted.”
Curmudgeon, “Well some of it is the squirrel…”
Friendly Reader, “Your line could be down for a million reasons. There is no squirrel!”
Curmudgeon, “There is no spoon. Suddenly I feel like watching the matrix.”
Friendly Reader, “So do it.”
Curmudgeon, “Netflix is down. I wonder if Blockbusters is still in business.”
Friendly Reader, “You’re hopeless.”
Curmudgeon, “It’s been said before.”