It was like living in a cave!

Sorry, GEICO dudes, I feel like a caveman. A few hours ago, a much needed thunderstorm passed through our area and knocked out our Internet service, cable TV, and land line telephones. I waited patiently for about thirty minutes before calling Time Warner to see what was up. I was pretty sure that everyone in our area was affected by the outage, but, after awhile, you start to think that it might only be you. Maybe the cable and telephone companies aren't even aware of the problem. Anyway, I called Time Warner, and, sure enough, the robot lady told me that the service in our area was out, the technicians were working hard to restore it, and the customer service people had no more information about the situation.

Rachel went to our master suite and took a shower. She had to get ready to take Josh somewhere at 6:30. She is a person who can spend five minutes in the bathroom getting ready to go somewhere when she is in a hurry or an hour or so, if she isn't in a hurry. Part of the time she spends lounging on the bed reading in her robe, letting time do its drying magic. Then she moves back into the bathroom and does all that girly stuff like hair, etc. She barely even noticed that the storm had reduced our home to unbearable prehistoric conditions.

Josh went to his room and slept. He didn't know what else to do with himself. I heard him playing his electric guitar for awhile, but that must have gotten boring. He usually rotates between his laptop, Xbox Live, his guitar, and TV. There is no real schedule. In fact, you never know when you will find him doing any of them. I've been woken in the middle of the night by his shouting at the Xbox. Today, he slept so soundly that he didn't even hear his new alarm clock. Rachel bought it for him online. It's guaranteed to wake even the heaviest sleeper. He tested it when it arrived yesterday. The loudest setting hurt my ears and made all the downstairs windows rattle. Hopefully, he won't need it that loud at UT. If he does, the first time he uses it, everyone will run out of the building in a panic. He'll probably get arrested.

Jared spent the time in his room doing who knows what. I don't think he was sleeping. I could hear things banging and clanking every once in awhile. He came out every fifteen minutes and looked at the cable modem to see if service was back on. Rachel told him it would be a good time to read the books on his summer reading list, but he didn't care for that idea at all. Reading is not popular with either of my boys, unless it is something that is entirely of their own choosing. Even though he got to pick a book off the list, it wasn't his idea to have a list, so he will avoid reading any book on it as much as possible.

That leaves me. I am a fifty-year-old man. I've been alive for part of the last six decades. I think I lived in a cave as an infant. You'd think I would just go to my nightstand, grab my latest novel and reading glasses and pass the time reading. Don't kid yourself. I was just as stir crazy as anyone else. I spent the time backing up my computer files to my portable hard drive. Then I tortured myself watching the slide show of photos of Mom that was hiding on there. That led me to start working on a slide show of my trip west with the guys. I even passed time watching all the Flip videos I shot on the trip. After that, I went and checked the mail and watered the one plant that the rain couldn't get to. Unlike Jared, I didn't check the cable modem every fifteen minutes. No, my routine was more like every twenty minutes. I would disconnect the electricity to the modem and wait to see if it would start up. That usually does the trick. I kept turning the TV off to see if the cable would magically be working when I turned it back on.

When I couldn't think of anything else to do, I started writing this. About ten minutes into it, the cable suddenly came back on. The Internet did not. Now, I find myself checking the modem every few minutes, “just in case”. I don't want to watch TV right now. I want to go on Facebook and see what everyone else is up to. I want to check my e-mail and see if there are any messages from my sister. I want to find music for the slide show I started working on. And guess what? I get to go do all of those things right now. All five lights on the cable modem just lit up. Gotta go!!!