05 July 2007

F.U., dial-up!

I'm back! I think. Since I've been living out in rural Va, I've had to deal with old-fashioned internet. The kind that involves wires and modems and a landline and AOL. I want to curl into the fetal position just thinking of it.
The past few weeks, I've gotten pretty good at Spider Solitaire. I leave a window open so I have something to do while I'm waiting for AOL to connect me or my websites to load. I don't think I've Husband ever swear as much as he did when we dialed in. AOL has this lovely little trick of connecting us, not loading what we want it to load, disconnecting us, then not telling us we'd been booted. Whenever this happened, Husband usually said something like, "Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit. I fucking hate AOL." Similar sentiments left my mouth as well.
It's not my parents' fault that we are slaves to dial-up out here. The broadband and DSL companies haven't made the Northern Neck a priority, at least not this area. They also can't get cable, so they have Direct TV instead. Direct TV is great, but that's not the point of this. Since I started living here full time, and consequently started bitching about the internet situation full time, my mother put me in charge of researching high speed options other than broadband or DSL. Dialing into AOL, I researched two different satellite internet companies. With both companies, I managed to get as far as the part where they asked me to give them a credit card. At that point, I made more progress with the company that had a local outlet, explained the situation, and told him my mother would call him back with a credit card shortly. He made two visits to the house, one of which was on a Saturday afternoon, and at some point today, we got high speed internet. Husband and I were gone all day, but every once in awhile I'd remind him that I wanted some time online tonight to "type," as I call it. By the time we got close to home, I was practically salivating in anticipation. I'm ashamed to say that I rushed Baby's bedtime routine just a bit, but he didn't seem to mind.
I've wasted almost two hours on here now. I tend to write pretty slowly, so while I'm typing a post, I'm also doing other things, like reading or answering emails, being a myspace stalker, flipping out about my credit card balances or catching up on celebrity gossip. I couldn't do any of that while dialing in.
I know I should be grateful that I even get to use the internet when there are so many people in the world who don't have access to instant gratification, but I have to say, I think I'm spoiled and have entitlement issues. I expect for my internet to be able to handle multiple tabs and switch back and forth among several websites instantly. I know I'm selfish, but I'm also a product of the times.
Sadly, it's after midnight now, and even though I've got a lot of nervous energy right now-more about that tomorrow, hopefully-I should try to sleep. I have to get up at 6ish tomorrow morning, and Baby will probably be awake soon and want to eat.

1 comment:

Jennifer (Jen on the Edge) said...

I'm SO glad you're back online on a regular basis.