Grandma’s Wi-Fi Revenge

Grandma’s Wi-Fi Revenge

Subtitle: When the Internet Goes Down, She Levels Up

At exactly 6:32 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, something monumental occurred at the Cooper household.

The Wi-Fi went down.

Panic swept through the living room like a cold wind. Ethan, 14, dropped his controller mid-match. Jenny, 16, gasped so loudly it startled the cat. Even little Milo, age 9, froze mid-click on his tablet.

“Grandma!” they all shouted at once, rushing into the kitchen.

There she was—Mildred Cooper. Seventy-two years old. Five-foot-two. Bun tightly pinned. Reading glasses perched on her nose. She sipped chamomile tea and stared serenely out the window, as if she had no idea a digital apocalypse was underway.

“Grandma, the Wi-Fi’s out!”

“Oh dear,” she said mildly, not looking up from her mug. “Is it now?”

Ethan launched into a rapid-fire explanation of his online game’s ranking system, Jenny clutched her phone like a lifeline, and Milo looked like he was going to cry.

“I was on YouTube, Grandma,” he whimpered. “It was a compilation.”

Grandma set her tea down gently and turned around. “Well, isn’t that a shame.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Jenny’s eyes narrowed.

“Wait. Did you do something?”

Grandma blinked innocently. “Me? What would I do?”

“The router!” Ethan yelled, bolting toward the corner where the sacred black box of blinking lights resided. “She touched the router!”

He skidded to a halt.

The router was gone.

In its place was a laminated note that read:

“If you want Wi-Fi, come talk to me. Love, Grandma.”

It all began two months earlier.

When Grandma Mildred had moved in, the kids were polite for a grand total of forty-eight hours. After that, she became invisible—except when the Wi-Fi needed rebooting or someone needed a ride to practice. They barely said hello. They left their dishes in the sink. They called her “Grams” like she was a houseplant.

At first, she didn’t mind. Kids were kids. But then Ethan had the audacity to scoff—scoff—when she asked how to download a game on her tablet.

“Oh my God, Grandma,” he muttered. “Just Google it.”

Jenny laughed and whispered something about her being "prehistoric." Milo didn’t even look up.

That night, Mildred sipped her tea and stared at the blinking router across the room.

And she made a plan.

Back in the present, Ethan was searching drawers, Milo was crawling under the couch, and Jenny was losing her mind.

“I’ve got homework due on Google Classroom!”

“You never do your homework,” Ethan shot back.

“Shut up!”

“Both of you shut up,” Grandma said pleasantly from the kitchen. “You’ll need to stop bickering if you want to pass the first Wi-Fi test.”

The kids froze.

“Test?” Jenny said.

“Oh yes. There are three tests. Pass them, and the sacred signal shall be restored.”

Ethan snorted. “This is insane.”

“Internet privileges are a privilege,” Grandma replied, taking out a clipboard. “Let’s begin.”

Test One: Basic Human Decency

“Each of you will sit down and ask me about my day. And actually listen.”

Jenny rolled her eyes so hard it looked like her pupils might detach. “Seriously?”

“Timer starts now,” Grandma said, pressing a button on her phone.

It was the longest ten minutes of their lives.

Jenny: “So… did you, uh, bake anything today?”

Grandma: “I did. Banana bread.”

Jenny: “Cool.”

Ethan: “Did you watch, like, TV or something?”

Grandma: “A documentary on World War II espionage. Fascinating stuff.”

Milo: “What’s espionage?”

Grandma smiled. “Well, it’s kind of like being a spy…”

By the end of the timer, Milo was actually interested, Jenny was only mildly fidgety, and Ethan had stopped sighing every ten seconds.

Grandma nodded. “Not bad. Test Two begins now.”

Test Two: Analog Survival Skills

She handed them each a folded paper and a pen.

“This,” she said, “is a map. You’re going to walk to the library and return with a book. Using only this map.”

Jenny gasped. “The actual library? Like, outside?!”

“It’s two blocks away.”

“What book?” Ethan asked.

“Surprise me,” Grandma said. “But if you bring back a Captain Underpants, I’ll deduct points.”

They grumbled, but they went. And something strange happened. Somewhere between the second block and the actual book smell of the library, they forgot to be annoyed. They started laughing at the weird titles in the children’s section. Ethan challenged Jenny to a race back home. Milo tried to balance his book on his head.

When they returned, out of breath and red-cheeked, Grandma inspected their choices:

Ethan: Ender’s Game

Jenny: To Kill a Mockingbird

Milo: The Hardy Boys and the Tower Treasure

Grandma raised an eyebrow. “Respectable. Final test.”

Test Three: Digital Humility

Each child received an envelope. Inside was a handwritten Wi-Fi password. But the password didn’t work.

Ethan stormed in. “You tricked us!”

“No,” Grandma said calmly. “You must earn the real password. Each of you will now teach me how to do something digital. Without sighing, rolling your eyes, or calling me ‘ancient.’”

They stared at her.

“Ethan,” she said, “you’ll teach me how to play Minecraft. Jenny, you’ll walk me through editing a photo on that TikTalk thing. Milo, you’ll teach me how to use YouTube search filters. I expect enthusiasm.”

And they did it.

They groaned at first, but then Jenny actually grinned as she showed Grandma how to add a filter to a selfie.

“See? Now you look like a bunny,” she said.

“I look like a demonic rabbit with pink cheeks,” Grandma replied. “Delightful.”

Ethan was patient. He built her a tiny cottage in Minecraft and let her feed the virtual cows.

Milo showed her how to find videos of knitting tutorials. “See? You just tap here. Not too hard.”

When it was over, Grandma typed the final password into the router, which she triumphantly placed back on its pedestal.

The Wi-Fi sprang to life.

From that day on, things changed.

The kids still loved their screens—but they also knew how to hold a conversation, visit a library, and show a little respect to the woman who knew how to wield a modem like a sword.

Grandma got regular hugs. Her tea was refilled without asking. Jenny even asked for a knitting lesson.

And Ethan? He started calling her "General Mildred" after she beat him at Minecraft in front of his friends.

"Revenge," Grandma said one evening, sitting with a satisfied smile, "is a dish best served over fiber optics."