Last night, about 9 pm, our internet went out.  I waited (not patiently) for an hour to go by and hoped that the internet gremlins would leave for other parts.  They did not.  We called our internet provider and hoped we could understand the person who was on the other end of the line.  We could.  He was very friendly but not helpful.  “You have an outage,” he told us.  Really?  We would never have known otherwise.  Yes, I’m being sarcastic.  It’s not a great trait, but it’s mine.  We had an outage, and they were aware of it, and well, it could take up to 48 hours to correct.  (insert hysterical scream here)  It was a good thing that it was, by that time, late enough that I could watch the news and go to bed.

When I have no internet, my world shrinks.  It shrinks in a BIG way.  Huge.  OSS is 99.999% internet based.  I keep in touch with friends and family on a daily basis via the internet.  My genealogy research is 95% internet based.  I have a Kindle that works on wi-fi only.  No internet, no wi-fi.  I do have a “smart phone” that is, admittedly, smarter than I am.  However, we live in an area that is quite often a dead zone for cellular signals.  My kids swear the house has lead walls.

I got up this morning filled with renewed hope, but soon found out that the internet had not been released by the gremlins.  I stared at my computer screen for a long time.  I reached for the mouse a couple of times before realizing that what I wanted to do could not be done without the internet.  My husband suggested I read a book.  Say, what?  I resorted to playing Spider Solitaire while I stewed.  All kidding aside, if I didn’t have OSS, what use would I have for a pc?  After more stewing and losing several games of solitaire while sucking down my daily cup of coffee, I hauled out my cutting board, blade, and some heart canes.  I was not going to give in to the gremlins.  I sliced up 2 miniature canes of itty bitty pink and white hearts, lined 2 glass vases with said hearts, and made 2 pitcher sets of pink lemonade sets for the OSS Etsy Store.  Take that, you pesky gremlins!

They must have seen my steely determination.  Our internet service is back.  Obviously.  OSS – 1, Gremlins – 0

My world is big again.