Operation Rubber Chicken

When we arrived home yesterday afternoon, our internet connection was not working. Hoping it was a temporary problem, we tried getting online a few hours later. No luck. We began troubleshooting. We shut our computers down and restarted them. We fiddled with the airport box. We looked up diagnostics on our computers. But we could not figure out the issue. So we put away our computers and found other things to do with our time. However, I had one concern; how was I going to post my daily blog post?

Around 7:30pm, after writing my blog entry, I decided I would drive into town and get online at a local business. I mentioned my plan to one of my daughters who said, “Yes. You have to. I’ll go with you”. Another daughter asked, “Seriously?” I suppose I should have taken a moment to think about what I was doing. Was I was actually going to get into my car to find service to mooch off so as to meet my self-imposed daily challenge of posting an entry to my blog? But I didn’t even pause to consider her one worded question. The answer was simply, “Yes”.

Surprisingly, when I announced I was leaving, all three girls said they were coming with me. Two of the girls grabbed their own laptops. My son, away at a sleepover, would miss the impromptu trip to town. He would miss “Operation Blog”.

We parked and after deciding who was the least embarrassed to go inside to go buy milk, (three of the four of us were wearing pjs), Syd went in to buy a gallon, and three of us girls popped open our laptops to get online. The service was weak and for the first few minutes we were all having trouble logging on. We restarted our computers, anxious to see if we’d be successful or not. We screamed when only one of us got service. And we laughed. “I feel like a spy”, I said. “This is so intense”, my daughter giggled. “How do you spell freewheeling”, Noemi asked. We knew she was updating her Facebook status and looking for the word we’d taught her earlier in the day, “freeloading”. We began cracking up again as we spelled it out for her.

I was finally successful and logged onto my blog, signed in, and hit the “Create New Post” button. I uploaded my writing that I’d done at home, attached a few pictures, and after hitting “Preview”, I posted my entry before the internet service connection failed me. Mission accomplished!

We waited for Syd to get back with the milk. I browsed Facebook for a few minutes, uploaded the link to my blog, emailed my sister quickly to tell her of our evening’s adventure, and then Syd jumped back in the car. We hadn’t seen her coming and being the competent spies that we are, we all screamed when she opened the door. She got in, set down the gallon of milk, and began handing out presents she’d bought us: candy bars and a few gag gifts including a tiny rubber chicken. “Seriously?” I found myself thinking. Were we all now playing with a tiny rubber chicken? Were we now chowing down on candy bars after 8pm on a Saturday night? Did we seriously all pile in the car together to drive into town so I could mooch off the internet service of a local business and post my blog for the day? The answers to these questions were simple. “Yes”.

Operation Blog, no, rather, Operation Rubber Chicken, was a success. Over and out.