What else could it mean when your house is struck by lightning?
Did I do something wrong? Was it because I hid the powdered donuts from everyone else in my house and ate them all myself?
Whatever I did, I didn’t mean it! I’ll be good from now on, I promise!
When the thunderstorm moved in this afternoon I was thrilled. It was the implied promise of cooler temperatures and less humidity that had me excited. I’ve never been fond of unbearable summer heat. So I didn’t mind the dark skies, the deep rumbling of distant thunder, or the light show.
I like a nice summer storm, after all.
I didn’t even flinch when the storm was directly overhead. I relished the soothing sounds of thunder and rain as I sat to write a new chapter into my work in progress. The dogs were at my feet, I had classical music playing lightly in the background, and I was completely oblivious to the danger getting closer until the loud crack that lit up my kitchen!
My laptop flashed and went dark, frightening me more than the blue light still pulsating in the air. I was terrified it had been fried.
It wasn’t.
But my wireless router was. So were my cable internet modem, my HDTV box, and all the outlets in my kitchen. The kid’s bedrooms were also dark, but since most of them weren’t home, I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about the cable equipment and getting back to Twitter. How could I possibly post on Twitter if I couldn’t even reach the internet?
I immediately yelled for my husband, who had somehow missed the whole “we were struck by lightning” thing as he worked from his home office in the other wing of the house. He had yet to discover the loss of internet connection. But he immediately jumped to action checking to be sure the house wasn’t on fire.
I didn’t care about a fire. I was too busy pressing the reset button on the cable modem, using every bit of “wish” karma I had left in me to resuscitate the internet connection.
I unplugged it…shook it…plugged it back in…kissed it…twice! And finally pressed the reset button while looking toward Heaven and mumbling, “Please come back, please come back, please come back.”
It didn’t.
My husband, the software engineer, set out to “fix” the problem because I’m just a writer, and we don’t know how to fix things in the real world.
After multiple attempts, and a lengthy phone call to the cable company, we had to accept the inevitable. Our cable modem had gone into the light.
I didn’t care that I couldn’t watch television, or Netflix. I didn’t care that I may never be able to plug in a blow dryer in my bathroom again. I didn’t even care that the kids may need flashlights to find their pajamas.
I was too busy packing a bag to head out to the bookstore for free WiFi!
Of course, I couldn’t spend the entire night at Barnes and Noble, they closed at ten. No, I had to troll the airwaves for an alternate internet connection, hopeful that my neighbors had left theirs open…and went to bed early.
Instead, I locked into to my husband’s cell phone connection (stealing his bandwidth without his knowledge because I know his password!) His new mobile device is amazingly fast…even with two people sharing the connection.
Tomorrow I will be forced to drive to the other side of town to swap my deceased modem for a new one. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll have to use my own phone for the rest of the night. Thank goodness for a 3G connection!
Oh, and just in case you were wondering…we did manage to get the lights back on in the kids’ rooms. Because it was the right thing to do.
Until the next time…I’ll be going to bed early like a pioneer!