Email #3: in which Eddie Murphy saves my internet

My internet crashed last night, disrupting my plans to talk to my girlfriend on Skype this morning from ChinaFort1. Email #1 was me apologizing for the disruption. Email #2 was me telling her about how, in the face of mandatory achievement awards for finishing classes despite academic accomplishments, I gave a student a perfectly reasonably award laden with hard-to-detect innuendo about his future as a bachelor. Here's number three, written while the glow of the resumption of home broadband access washed over my ecstatic face (and please note that the moniker "Boo-boo" is for variety of pet names ONLY, and should not assumed to be my normal greeting protocol in any non-randomized situation):

Hey Boo-boo,

I can normally deal with internet outages if I know they're coming, like when I go on vacation without my computer, or when I see a plain white van across the street occupied by men in black suits eyeing me through binoculars, all while nonchalant, orange-helmeted linemen clip the wires heading to my house. That's when I usually put in the earplugs (even though I always come out with my hands up, I hate bullhorns; they make me panicky).

In America if the internet goes out I'm on the phone with Comcast within thirty seconds demanding status updates, assuring them that yes, I've restarted my computer, my router and my modem in all applicable combinations and would they just freaking get the green lights blinking again? It's different here in China. Sure, there's a phone number I can call, and through the combination of pressing random numbers and pounding the phone on my head I can usually get someone on the line to yell at, but at that point, my terse demanding tone is exactly that, only it's in a language that's mostly foreign to the operator unless, especially as the situation escalates, he or she was an English major and had attended a graduate-level course in "The Art of Swearing, Level 2: Fuck You Fucking Motherfuckers."

On top of that, rent's due, and calling the landlord to have him resolve the internet crisis means reminding him that I haven't given him money for a few months. I can more than afford it, but for some reason I get antsy whenever it's time for him to visit. He's a nice guy, but every time he comes over he asks if I'm cold, and when I inevitably tell him that I'm not he insists that I'm wearing far too few items of clothing to maintain my "semblance" (quotes his) of good health. At first it was not wearing socks in the house (in the summer), then it was only making do with a jacket and jeans (fall), followed by an insufficient number of layers in the winter (I was sporting five, thanks). Every three months I get a lecture, and not just any lecture. This man can throw me out of my palatial, warm, two bedroom, furnished, (have I mentioned warm?), very white and cozy apartment at the whim of his internal thermometer.

While I had my Chinese friend at the ready to call my landlord in case this digital drought lasted through the weekend, I turned off all internet devices in the house and fired up Eddie Murphy's seminal masterpiece (just kidding, he wasn't the director, unless you're a racist) Berverly Hills Cop to lull me to sleep. Laughs were had. Tailpipes were banana'd. Judges were Reinholded and I wondered where that guy went (which I lacked the Google to find out).

Then, something magical happened. As I'd done over and over again for the last few days, I plugged in the DSL modem, then the wireless router and finally reactivated the wifi on my laptop. And as usual, four bars appeared, covered by an exclamation mark. Then the ! went away. I'd like to think it was Damon Wayans' banana scene. There are about six times in history that the Wayans brothers have been funny, and three of them were a collaborative effort in the major motion picture I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, so I'm just going to assume that my watching one of the remaining three on a whim did...something. With midichlorians. And since it was an Eddie Murphy production (fuck Jerry Bruckheimer), I'm giving him all the credit. He needs it. Did you see Norbit? Me neither, but man oh man.

Afterwards, Google googled again. Skype contacts were green. I went to Yahoo! and was about to search for "Free at last, I am free at last!" before I realized that comparing twenty-four hours of searching for coffee shops willing to let me leech of their wifi to the triumph of the civil rights movement was a total dick move. And Yahoo search sucks, but welcome to 1998. I will try to Skype you at lunch with my newfound...well working internet. Maybe it won't be so choppy this time.

Love,

Greg

Image of Miffy via peruisay