New lows

It’s almost 1am, and I should go to sleep.

But I think I’m exploiting the fact that I have Internet access right now.

We’ve been having a lot of problems with our connection at the apartment this week. What makes it worse is that we share a wireless connection with the landlord who lives next door. The box is in her apartment, so when it goes out or needs to be reset, I either have to go knock on her door and ask her to do it, or wait until she leaves the apartment to use her spare key and do it myself.

Neither of those things is possible when it goes out at 11pm, which is what happened Tuesday night.

When I got home from work on Thursday night, it was still on the fritz. But even after asking her to reset it, it still wasn’t working.

At that moment, I realized just how dependent I am on the Internet.

I needed to email a student because she had missed my class for the fifth time, and according to the university’s policy, that results in failure of the course.

Not wanting to ask my landlord to reset the box again or to go back to campus, I came up with a plan.

I decided to drive to the coffee place not too far from my apartment because I knew they had a wireless connection.

It seems like an easy enough idea right, go inside and order a cup of coffee and use their wireless connection.

But if you know me by now, you know that it’s never that clear-cut.

I hadn’t yet eaten dinner, and my back was still hurting, and I certainly didn’t want to spend money on coffee when I’d already eaten lunch out that day.

So instead, I thought it would be brilliant to sit in the car and see if I could still pick up the signal from the parking lot.

Picture this: me, sitting in my car, with the window rolled down and my laptop half out the window letting in the freezing air.

Did I do this?

Yes. Yes I did.

Did I look ridiculous?

Yes. Yes I did.

The whole process took much longer than I would have liked, and I can only imagine what the girls who were sitting near the window thought I was doing. I’m sure I looked like a cheap bastard exploiting a wireless signal.

Wait, that’s exactly what I was doing.

New lows people, new lows.