Ode to the Internets

The old adage, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” rang true yesterday afternoon. Our cable line was taken out.

Now, the fiber optic line that brings us our wonderful high-speed internet capabilities wasn’t removed for lack of a bill being paid or for replacement. Rather, it was taken out by a very large white semi-truck with a tractor trailer attached barreling down our small suburban road. I’ve seen the trucks themselves drive down the road, as he parks it on the next street up from our house, but never with a full trailer on it. Why? Low lying lines.

Okay, so the other situation is that our cable comes from a pole across the street from us and is supposed to be attached to the house without any slack. Unfortunately, where it is attached to the house is still too low for the wire to safely be swinging in the middle of the street so it was thrown over a branch on the maple tree in our front yard to keep it up high enough. Well, unfortunately that particular branch broke some time ago, as it was dead wood, while my partner was doing work on the roof. It had to be disconnected in order to fix the section they were working on, and so it was placed next to the pole across the street waiting to be reattached. Which it was. Well, I might add. I did it myself.

So yesterday afternoon as I was preparing a little something for Vacation Bible School, I hear a truck coming by rather quickly, and much faster than the 30 MPH speed limit, which also makes me wonder if they ran the STOP sign too (not uncommon) when I suddenly hear a loud POP! It only took a second to realize what had happened… that damned truck took out our cable internet line! I went outside to investigate and to make sure that it didn’t take part of our roof off in the process. Fortunately it didn’t, but there I stood, waiting for a few cars to pass over my downed internet line before I pulled it out of the road and into the yard for our internet provider to come out and fix. Of course, calling them and explaining the situation they say they’ll be able to assess the situation the next day.

Alas, no internet for research on my craft project I’m doing today means that I’m just going to go with what I’ve got. I suppose the lesson is to not be such a procrastinator… and you never know when a gigantic white semi-truck is going to take out your internet!