I Drew This

The red internet light came on, I think it was Tuesday night. It happens from time to time but usually fixes itself up after a few minutes. Like a watched pot though, you have to go into another room for a few mintues before you can come back and find the green light back on.

We got by without it last night. I had House to watch on TV and there were forms to fill out for Little Miss L’s school. It was probably a good thing as it meant C couldn’t check her work email, forcing her to think about something else for one night. She told me today though, “I have stuff I need to do tonight. Fix the internet as soon as you get home”.

When I got home tonight and there were four green lights but one red one: the one you don’t want to be red if you want to link to the outside world without having to dial numbers (soooo 20th century). I tried the usual methods: turned off the router for a few minutes… reboot… red light again; unplugged the network cables… reboot… red again.

So the next thing to do was ring the ISP. I got through the initial phone menu, selected the appropriate options, then made a cup of tea and some toast while the scratchy hold music struggled out of the 1cm speaker of the phone. I watched the lights reset themselves over and over while I was on hold: one green, two green, three green, red!

I was caught a bit off guard when a real voice came on the other end saying “Hello, this is Hassan, how may I help you?” and as I was saying the words “My internet connection is down”, bugger me if the red light didn’t turn green, blink a couple of times, then settle into a nice solid all-systems-go kind of glow.

I gave Hassan my customer number as I plugged network cables back in and hit the home button on the browser, then told him what had happened and thanked him for a job well done as the timer on the phone clicked over to 30 minutes.