Oh. My. God. To be without Internet access for 24 hours. How spoiled am I? Let me count the ways.

Now, I’ve written about the Internet’s effect on my life several times before. For example, there was Before the Internet (written exactly one year ago, how cool is that), and What’s Wrong With Me! Episode Five – Saved by the Net.  But this time being forced to go offline “cold turkey” for just one single day made me realize I am totally addicted to the thing.

On Wednesday, a couple of days after my return from a short but splendid visit to the U.S. to see my son and his wife – I only get to see them once a year or so – I was just beginning to catch up with many emails, Facebook notifications, news reports and the like, when suddenly everything went dark. Metaphorically, I mean.

It’s true that there had been a warning. I’d seen a sign posted on the door of my apartment building the previous day. In fact, I’d taken a photo of it:

When I saw this, I felt a chill. But I said to myself, maybe we’ll be lucky and the “interruptions of service” will be mercifully short.

But no. After about three hours of the Great Blackout, I phoned my provider’s number. It was just after 4:00 p.m. when I called them.

I won’t test your patience here (as mine was tested!) by recounting the repeated conversations with not one, not two, not three, but four tech-support guys, spread over three phone calls over three hours. The end result? A technician would have to come to my home the next morning sometime, since the problem was at my address. And apparently it was just me! Argh!

No Internet. No TV, either! For me, this was like, say, no running water. Yes, yes, I know it was just a day. In my opinion, though, it wasn’t “just”!

Suffice to say that the next morning, as I was deep in the throes of Internet DTs (Deprivation of Technology), the terrific tech guy came and after one hour of solid puttering, mostly with the service hub down in the garage, IT WAS BACK! Oh, joy, oh joy!

My joy was tempered by the discovery that the recording of “Designated Survivor” which I had carefully preset my PVR to do, turned out to be nothing but a black screen.

Sigh. Oh well, must go now, I’m still going through my missed messages. 😀