The Day Without The Interent (AKA, Week 12)

So, this weekend, my wife an I went out of town to visit some friends, hit a ren faire site to register our badges early, and go to a mini-class reunion for my wife. I had planed to be out of town, and figured I would just bring the laptop with me, finish up my story while on the road, and then just pop into a coffee shop, probably a Starbucks, and post it.

Sadly, several of the above things were not to happen as planned.

Let's start with this. Saturday went fine. We drove for nearly 3 hours and got to our friend's house. We visited, had dinner out (ah, Denny's... okay food, but always open and affordable), and then crashed in their spare bedroom. Fine and dandy, exactly as planned.

This morning, things began to go bad.

We had breakfast (pancakes, bacon and sausages. Yummy!), showered, changed, packed up and went to Starbucks. That's when our friend and her son came along as unexpected tag alongs. Okay, really, not a big deal, it's just that we were planning on stopping of at Starbucks long enough for me to post, and then bug out of there to do our things. Now we had to go back to our friend's house to drop her back home. Meh, no big deal in the long run.

Now, we get to Starbucks, with posters advertising their free AT&T WiFi. I had trouble finding a plug, however... the ONE that was by a seat was in use. And I needed one, because the lap top battery wasn't holding a charge. No biggie, I find one by a display case, and just move a chair and table next to it.

So, powered on, I automatically connect to the network, but cannot actually navigate the internet, because my wife can't remember her log-in and password to the AT&T network. We call her best friend to get her log in, but no luck there, either. No one can remember their log-in's. We obviously hang out at Starbucks a lot.

Again, no big deal, I decide to just buy a Starbucks card and get a new account for myself. Here's the rub:

The minimum purchase is $5.00 on the card. Okay, doable, my wife will use that in one go. HOWEVER, in order to get an internet account, I need to make FIVE SEPARATE PURCHASES on the card. FIVE! I couldn't get over it.

"Well," the barista trying to be helpful to me says, "You can buy 5 biscottis, that will count."

Ugh. I can't stand biscottis, and I am not about to but five of the things when I wouldn't even eat one of them if you paid me. By this point, we had been there for almost an hour, wasting our time, and it had become far too complicated.

So, I just decide that the story will have to wait until I get home. Which I am now, having arrived about an hour before this blog post is being written.

So, phew! What a day! But, it's all over, and now, late but still on Sunday, so still in time for the deadline, is this week's story, Cash for Katie!