Surviving The Big Owie

For our first fifteen-plus years living in the country we were burdened with and hampered by what was arguably the worst Internet in the country, if not the entire planet. Consider: Matt and Ashley, our eldest and his wife, returned from a 2007 Tanzanian adventure during which they spent a few nights as guests of the Maasai tribe, pastoralist herders, who – they swear – had a better internet connection in their compound in the East African desert than we had in Moffat. I wanted to believe that they were joking, or at least exaggerating, but I had my doubts. And our internet was down so I couldn’t look it up.

Fact: the absolute best internet we could secure here in the hinterland was the only internet we could secure. For years there was but one internet service provider (company slogan: We Suck But, By Gosh, We’re All You’ve Got). Our geographical location cannot truly be described as remote given that an on-ramp to the longest, most-travelled highway in the country is less than ten minutes away. But we are unquestionably rural, a.k.a. low-population density with protracted stretches between homes that made us wickedly unpopular with (and unprofitable for) internet providers. To cop a phrase from Robertson Davies, Moffat was (and remains) ‘rustic beyond redemption.’ But honestly, we love rustic and who really wants to be redeemed?

So, with weeping, swearing and the gnashing of teeth, we endured dial-up. I don’t profess to know how this technology works (or any technology for that matter). I do know that the infernal, woeful sound of the modem trying to connect with something/anything out there in the ether was grating on both soul and ears -- a sound that to this day triggers me; a sound akin to that of Yoko Ono ‘singing’ Happy Birthday to poor John. Eventually, a connection would be made, or not, depending on the alignment of the moon and the mood of the connectors. Granted, even if successful, the available internet was about as slow and fickle as a costive old dog trying to find the perfect place to poop -- a fitting analogy for internet that was basically dogshit.

So, there we’d be, monopolizing the phone line: trying to log onto a website, or God forbid, trying to retrieve email. Staring at the computer as an infuriating white circle tauntingly rotated in slow hypnotic circles. Which meant the connection was so feeble, there was a boatload of buffering going on – and that the bandwidth available was shaky at best. Sometimes the connection would somehow get its shit together and, say, pull in an email so long as the correspondence was pithy and contained no bulky attachments. All in all, it was like living before the internet long after there was an internet.

Friends would innocently inquire: did you see that hilarious cat video that’s making the rounds? We’d answer: No, but have you seen the white circle rotating for hours? It’s pretty fucking funny, too. Cat-ass. Frustration levels peaked and cooler heads did not prevail when it started to seem as though everyone on the planet had this newfangled streaming service that provided them with unlimited entertainment. Here in Moffat, we attempted to watch something on that service. It went like this: opening credits of a show, white circle rotating for an hour. Netflix and chill? More like Netflix and blind rage. Netflix and shoe tossed at the TV. Netflix and… oh, you get the picture (even though we couldn’t) …

Even after our ISP finally advanced us beyond dialup, our connection remained temperamental, spotty, iffy. The new technology that officially rendered our dial-up obsolete was created, as far as I could fathom, and the ISP guys could explain, by ‘pinging signals off a new tower.’ And these magic signals would provide us with... internet? ‘Oh, yes. Fast and reliable internet for only twice the cost of what you’re currently paying.’ Screw the cost. For decent internet we’d have taken out a fifth mortgage on the house, sold the dog, rented out the kids; we needed fast and reliable. We needed Netflix. “Oh, this’ll get you Netflix.’ And to be fair, on occasion it did get us Netflix. Other times, not so much. We’d call the provider to let them know that the internet was not working, and they’d tell us, in earnest: ‘There must be a tree between your house and our new tower that’s blocking the signals.’ Ah, right: a tree grew overnight and suddenly blocked the signal. ‘Quite possibly.’ Quite impossibly. Are there any other real possibilities that might explain this absence of internet?

Honestly, it was internet that should have come with a coupon for therapy. Sign on with us and get a ten-dollar discount toward Anger Management. To understate, our internet situation was not ideal. We had people living under our roof who wanted – who expected and believed they were entitled – to internet that allowed them to recreate, and people who needed to have internet for work purposes. I clearly remember an early morning when a client called and sent Kel into a tizzy, saying they needed a document with (uh-oh) bulky attachments emailed to them. Immediately. Like, now. Back in those days, immediately, like now, meant quick-changing out of pajamas and speeding off to the nearest Starbucks, some twenty minutes away, to piggyback on their connection.

That very night we sat sipping cocktails and lamenting the state of our poor lives given our pathetic internet. With each passing day, as the world continued to get increasingly connected to and increasingly reliant on the internet, we here in the boonies became less functional and more vulnerable. Everything/Everybody – even the Maasai out there in the desert -- suddenly seemed intricately tethered to the web.

“You just wait,” I ominously told my wife. “It’s coming. A widespread occurrence of an infectious disease that will shut down the entire world. There will be lockdowns, and the general populace will be advised to either inject disinfectant or, you know, shelter in place. At that point we’ll absolutely need a vibrant speedy internet connection so that you, me, and any kids we may have living here when this shit-storm hits will be able to successfully work from home – thusly, remaining employed!” And, it went without saying, also able to watch cat videos, post selfies on Instagram, and other essential stuff.

Oddly, Kel doesn’t remember me ever predicting any global pandemic. Granted, she’d had a long day, and cocktails tend to take the wind out of the sails that energize her memory. But yes, if my memory serves me, I’m pretty sure I predicted the arrival of the said Global Pandemic. Although I believe I might have called it something else like, “The Big Worldwide Owie” ™.

“You are a hypochondriac, and you do tend to awfulize, taking everything to its worst possible conclusion. So, you may well have read that some sort of infectious disease would one day come for us. But specifically predicting the coronavirus pandemic in 2020? Nah, never happened.”

“Well, maybe you never happened,” I retorted, maturely.

My father liked to say that “God protects drunks and sparrows.” No idea why. No idea if it’s true. But as it turned out, God (or some Higher Being) mistook us for drunks or sparrows or whatever and protected us. As owner of her own public-relations firm, Kel was entrusted with navigating the company and its staff of some twenty employees through this… uncharted territory, this unprecedented crisis. We so obviously needed internet. Luckily for us, we won the lottery.

Shortly before “The Big Worldwide Owie” ™, Moffat was selected to be part of an ongoing rural experiment that would bring us super-reliable, high-speed fiber-optic internet – initially to a small group and, if successful, to an expanded customer base. After assorted exasperating delays, work began. Ground trenched, cables wrapped in conduit and buried, connection eventually brought into our house. Without which, come COVID, come the lockdowns and the sheltering in place, we would have been kaput. Unable to navigate business. Unable to earn a living. Unable to do… anything at all…