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If you are reading this in Monday's newspaper it is something of a miracle because I am writing it on clay tablets and may have to deliver it to the editor by Pony Express.
Our internet is out. Were sadder words ever written?
I could blame it on Britbox, because that's what we were watching on TV when an episode of "Ludwig" froze up, a spinning little blip on the screen telling us that it was buffering, buffering, buffering, which is to say trying to download the next packet of digital ones and zeroes comprising that funny, charming murder mystery.
My children, or I should say "our children" because my wife helped, bought me Britbox for Father's Day. I have fond memories of watching "Rumpole of the Bailey" and the David Suchet "Poirot" on PBS, back in the days when public broadcasting seemed satisfied with bringing us Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, and was not hell-bent on overthrowing the current administration.
I called the technical service phone number on our modem, or router, or whatever it is that blinks yellow to show the internet is working, and eventually I reached a nice fellow who may have been in Bangladesh and he walked me through the home remedies I had already tried, including unplugging the modem/router thing for 30 seconds to let the bad electrons dissipate from the cord.
This very nice, friendly tech service fellow, whose name I could not understand but who did not, thankfully, say he was "Bill" or "Jerry" or some such, had a home remedy I had not heard of before, which is to take a paper clip and poke it into a little hole in the back of the modem/router thing and hold it there for 30 seconds. I had to have him tell me when the 30 seconds was up because I had too much to do just holding the paper clip in the hole and could not be expected to keep track of the time as well.
That didn't work either but I was glad to add it to my small and ineffectual stock of internet home remedies. I found it interesting that not-Bill thought without asking that I would have a paper clip near at hand, and I did, handfuls of them in a drawer, in a wide variety of sizes. Not-Bill did not specify what size paper clip would be best to use. I wish he had because the smallish one I chose was flimsy and not the best choice for pushing the switch at the bottom of the hole, assuming there was one in there. I don't want to believe not-Bill would have me do that as busy work, but I must say that the concept of paper clips being an important tool in the internet service industry is unexpected. I had thought them as obsolescent to today's paperless society as buggy whips were in Grandfather Miller's day.
Not-Bill scheduled a visit for us from a tech worker for later this week. In the meantime I'll take some Bufferin (get it?) to sooth the headache from internet withdrawal.
If you should think about getting Britbox, Honey and I highly recommend "Lugwig," as well as the "Maigret" series with Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson is known for his humorous movies as "Bean" but is surprisingly brilliant in playing the fictional French detective. We watched the six "Ludwig" episodes at least twice, and were interrupted trying to show the second episode to grandson Lamppost Head, who was staying overnight. He had seen the first episode and was hooked like we were.
Yes, I did watch a "Rumpole" and a Suchet "Poirot," but found them a bit dated. There are a number of interesting Britbox shows, about half of them, it seems, based on Agatha Christie mysteries. We sometimes had to turn on closed captioning to understand what they said. The British may have invented the English language, but they don't speak it very well.
("A Dead Carp on Shadyside Ave.," Fred Miller's third book of stories, is $10, available locally at Calcutta Giant Eagle, Pottery City Antique Mall, Museum of Ceramics, Frank's Pastries, Davis Bros. pharmacies, and the Old Ft. Steuben gift shop.)