Searching for broadband

I’m always misplacing the Internet. Don’t ask me how. I can’t explain it.

One minute I’m walking willingly within the World Wide Web – catching the morning sunrise in Norway, watching the rain fall in New Zealand, wondering if I’m too old to learn the shuffle dance from TikTok – and the next minute I’m stumbling through a cell reception “dead zone” that makes me curse the very day I bought this new phone in the first place.

But even though I’m always misplacing the Internet, I luckily know pretty much where to almost find it when I’m inside my house:

Location No. 1 – The south corner of the foot of my bed. The best position for reception is lying down, stretched perpendicularly across the mattress, my head resting on my left arm, the phone propped up on a pillow, and my right hand scratching the dog’s belly so she won’t lick the reception right out of my phone.

Location No. 2 – The blue chair next to the western wall in the living room. The best position for reception is with my right arm stretched out south across the end table, my hand holding the phone tilted at a 25-degree angle, and my left hand trying to snap my fingers to get the cat to stop scratching the couch.

Location No. 3 – The east end of the couch in the living room. The best position for reception is with my right arm extended straight up like I’m trying to get the teacher’s attention. Sometimes it works, but most of the time the teacher ignores me and calls on somebody else.

If I still can’t find it, I head to the refrigerator for some ice cream. I can always find the ice cream.

Remember those days when transistor radios and televisions had attached antennas? We’d swivel the antenna until the reception was passable, then groan when a cloud passed overhead giving us nothing but crackling snow. Sometimes we’d wrap an aluminum foil flag on the end of the antenna to boost the signal, and congratulate ourselves for our ingenuity.

I wonder what would happen if I wrapped my cell phone in aluminum foil?

The problem is this: we live out in the country in a low area near the lake, where access to cable is not available. On a clear night (with some good imagination) we can practically see the shimmer of digital atoms passing about 100 feet over our house, streaming along their way to all points receivable – which does not include us.

“So, why don’t we just subscribe to a satellite service? You could watch soccer and Formula One racing, and I can bid on estate sale auctions without having to stand on my head in the north corner of the second bedroom?”

I’ve got a better idea! Instead of wasting money we don’t have on a service that might or might not work as well as what our suburban kinfolk enjoy, how about I do a Ben Franklin? Tie a wire string to a kite, launch it into the digital stream passing above our heads, attach the other end to one of our cell phones, pop on the wireless hotspot, and sail through the WWW like a luxury liner on a passage across the Atlantic.

“Sounds more likely we’d end up like that container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal – which would make me even more irritable.”

Then the next best thing is to stretch out at the foot of the bed. Arm extended. Phone propped up. Hand scratching the dog’s belly. And I swear the signal will be almost as good as being in the city.

Either that or let’s just have a bowl of ice cream.