The Sorry Tale Of An Internet Junkie

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What can I say? I’m an internet junkie and this is my tale.

Two and half weeks ago, my mother had her hip replaced. She is 76 and she is lucky to have family. We brought her home instead of putting her in a rehab facility. Since I can write anywhere, I took on the job of caring for her 15 hours out of the day. Dad is there at night and other family members have come in few nights and handled dinner, giving me a break (went home and made dinner for DH and did laundry). Insert SMILEY FACE here.

Okay. First morning, with laptop in bag, I’m up very early and headed off to parents home. After taking care of mom, (you know potty, washing, breakfast) she is again ready for a nap. I set up my laptop in dining room and prepared to write. But before I did, I decided to check my e-mail. I’d sent requested material to an agent the night before and God knows said agent might be trying to contact me, right? It’s already been ten hours seventeen minutes and fifty-four seconds.

ROLLING EYES. Come on. Tell the truth. You’ve done it.

Anyway, I hit email icon and spooling occurred, occurred, occurred and then diagnose icon jumped on the screen. WHAT THE HELL! I check my laptop. (we’re rural area) It was picking up a signal from the school across the street, but it was a secure network. The principal didn’t give me the password when I graduated from there eons ago. What to do? Mom’s sleeping. Dad is at work, (Yes at 76, he still works the family business) so I searched his home desk (he wanted me to look at a few things for him anyway) and I found the cable bill. They had discontinued internet service. OMG, there was no connection.

Okay, I admit. My heart did that skippy thing and my mind scattered for about .98765 of a second before I thought okay, no connection could be a good thing. I’ll get more writing done instead of surfing. Determined to do just that, I marched to the dining room and sat my butt in chair and put my hands to the keyboard, and it worked, I wrote several pages before mom called.

But as the days passed by, I raced home at night to see hubby, skipped the growing mound of laundry and hit sent-received button. Watching the emails pop up on the screen, bliss coated my tongue and fed through my soul. I was getting mail. I could answer mail. I could read blogs. I could research. The world was mine.

Yesterday, I couldn’t stand it any longer. Going without checking on my blog or sister blogs or email or FACEBOOK was killing me. It was Friday. Everyone surfs on Friday, right? I grabbed my laptop and crept into the backyard. There had to be a connection somewhere. There. I picked up on a weak signal from neighbor’s house, but I wasn’t sure. It was hard to see my screen in the bright sunlight. So tip-toed across the driveway, rounded the corner of their house and there on the back porch I found the internet.

I hit send-receive. Oh, there was mail. I could see it. I actually jumped up and down.

I knew I didn’t have time to do all I wanted to do. I had to get back to mom, who while watching HGTV napped on a chair and what if the neighbor’s saw me. Yes, I’ve know them all my life and I knew if I asked, they probably wouldn’t care if I used their service but there was something exciting hugging that corner of the porch, watching my screen fill with email and taking a peek at a blog that was so delicious.
It was so exciting that I stole onto the porch again later in the afternoon. This time however, mom was my lookout.

I’m an Internet Junkie and I will involve the innocent to help me in my endeavors to connect.