Doc No Internet Access

 This was written off-line a couple of weeks ago.  I forgot about it until now.

The mirimba (xylaphone?) looking icon in the lower right hand corner of my computer says, "Doc No Internet Access."  It's been saying that since noon yesterday.  I am reminded of those mornings when for whatever reason, bad weather, ailing paperboy, act of God, there was no newspaper on my porch.  How in the world was I going to face my day if I didn't have printed confirmation that the world was still there?  I could, of course, hastily don some clothes and streak to the corner for the paper box that was there and, for a quarter, put my day back on track but - and this was as certain as green on St, Patrick's Day - I knew this would alter the normal flow of the day's events in ways I might not necessarily care for.  Messing with routine, I had learned, can have dire consequences.  I was already off-putt at just the thought of having to go to the corner and that is an example of how things can go wrong when an orderly pattern is not followed.  The necessity of news, however, war, famine, fire, failures and ball scores, takes precedence over fear and it was off to the corner I usually went, daring fickle fate and its consequences all the way there and back.  At the breakfast table minutes later with the newspaper spread before me and hot coffee at the ready I knew nothing really could go wrong.

When your Internet is down there is no corner to go to.  You are just flat stuck.  And so, here I sit...waiting.  It's 9:AM and I have been up since 6:30. I have read many pages of a John Irving novel and done half a dozen small chores.  I check for Internet every fifteen minutes.  "Doc No Internet Access."  I am avoiding turning on our television.  There is news there, but there is no email, no Facebook, no Yahoo clips and Denver Post Sports.  Wolf and Donner Blitzer just don't cut it for me, well, at least, not at this hour.   Woe, I tell ya, woe is me.