No Bars, No Buffering, No Problem

It began as any other Tuesday would. Bob, a 35-year-old tech support worker who has an undying love for pineapple pizza and cat memes, was just settling into his usual work-from-home-in-pajamas routine when the sun shone brightly and birds sang. But little did he know that this Tuesday would go down in history as the most dramatically hilarious day of his entire life.
At exactly 9:02 AM, Bob took a sip of his third coffee of the morning and reached for his mouse to join the weekly video call with his team. But instead of seeing the familiar grid of sleepy coworkers, he saw something terrifying.
"No internet connection."
He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Tried to refresh. Still, the digital death sentence remained on the screen. Bob let out a primal scream that startled his cat, Chairman Meow, off the desk and into a potted plant.
Bob, who hadn’t lived a single day without the internet since 2003, was in full crisis mode.
"Okay, okay, calm down," he whispered to himself, pacing the living room like a panicked squirrel. "You’ve trained for this. You can make it. You’re a strong, independent man who once watched a YouTube video about growing potatoes."
Bob made an effort to resolve the issue. He turned on the router again. He unplugged it and plugged it back in. He even yelled words of encouragement at it. Nothing worked. The lights blinked mockingly.
Chairman Meow watched in disdain as Bob wrestled the router like it owed him money.
Desperate, Bob peeked out the window to see if the Wi-Fi gods had also punished the neighbors. He was horrified to see Bill from across the street reading a book on his porch. a real book on paper. Bill waved cheerfully. Bob gasped. Bill had gone feral.
With no access to memes, social media, or online shopping, Bob decided it was time to brave the outside world. He put on jeans for the first time in six weeks (they had shrunk mysteriously in the dryer), grabbed Chairman Meow (who was not pleased), and walked to the local coffee shop to steal—er, borrow—their Wi-Fi.
Upon arrival, Bob was met with a sign on the door:
"Sorry! Wi-Fi down due to citywide outage. Talk to each other like it's 1995!"
Bob nearly passed out. A world without Wi-Fi was like pizza without cheese, movies without popcorn, or a cat without judgmental glares.
The shop was full of other Wi-Fi refugees. A teenager was crying while holding her phone up to the ceiling like a holy relic. A group of remote workers stared at each other, unsure how to interact without Slack emojis. A man in the corner was whispering sweet nothings to his Bluetooth speaker, hoping to get a Spotify playlist out of it.
Bob sat down and opened his laptop out of sheer habit. Chairman Meow jumped on the table, swatted the power button, and stared him down. Clearly, it was time to do something Bob hadn’t done in years: talk to strangers.
"Hey," Bob said awkwardly to the woman sitting across from him, who was poking her phone like it betrayed her.
"Hey," she replied. "This is Rachel. I haven’t posted an Instagram story in three hours. I’m fading."
Bob stated, "I haven't Googled anything in twenty minutes." Without autocomplete, I can't remember who I am. They laughed. Others began joining in. It started with awkward small talk but evolved into something resembling an actual human conversation. Jokes were told. Coffee was shared. Chairman Meow became a minor celebrity after accepting treats from at least five different individuals. Then someone suggested an idea so radical, so revolutionary, it could only have come from a mind completely deprived of digital stimulation.
"What if we... played a board game?"
The room fell silent. Eyes widened. A board game? Like, cardboard and dice and everything?
Behind the counter, a dingy, unused Monopoly box from the Jurassic period was discovered. It was missing a few pieces, but no one cared. Bob was given the top hat. Rachel was the dog. Chairman Meow tried to eat the thimble.
People laughed, argued over Free Parking, and made shady deals involving Boardwalk and cupcakes. Bob hadn’t laughed this hard since the Great Cat Zoomies Incident of 2021.
Three hours passed in what felt like minutes. For once, time wasn’t measured in likes or video buffering.
Then, without warning, someone’s phone dinged.
Gasps echoed across the room. People scrambled to check their devices.
The Internet is back! Someone shouted. A strange mixture of groans and cheers broke out. Reality had returned. Notifications poured in like a tsunami. Bob looked at his phone, then at the group he had just bonded with.
"Well," Rachel said, smiling. "Return to the digital slog." "Yeah," Bob replied. "But maybe we should do this again. Perhaps, even if the Wi-Fi is working. Rachel nodded. Chairman Meow purred in approval.
Bob sat in front of his screen in his apartment the following evening. Wi-Fi was blazing. Slack was pinging. There were memes. But something had changed.
He opened a new tab and typed: "local board game night groups."
Because even in the age of fiber-optic speed and streaming everything, nothing beats laughing over fake money, arguing over the rules, and watching your cat try to knock the dog off the board.
The day the Wi-Fi went out was, ironically, the day real connection came back online.

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