If the ancient Egyptians had the internet, there would have been 11 plagues in Exodus, with "unreliable DSL" tucked in between the frogs and the lice.

It's a pain when your DSL goes down, but the bright side is that it gives you a chance to rate yourself on the Internet Dependency Scale. Just compare your actions to those listed below and you'll know what sort of pathetic digital symbiont you really are.

Stage 1 Internet Dependency

Immediate reaction: Check the wires, see if you can steal a neighbor's Wi-Fi, then get up and do something else.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Read a book, watch a movie, go for a walk. Is this a trick question?

If it doesn't come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then go back to whatever you were doing.

Stage 2 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Try to steal a neighbor's Wi-Fi. Walk around the house with your laptop if necessary.

What to do while waiting for the connection to come back: Watch a movie or something with your laptop close by so you can see if the connection's back up.

If it doesn't come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then check the connection every half hour just in case it fixes itself.

Stage 3 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Try the neighbor's Wi-Fi trick, including making a few guesses at the passwords of their locked-down networks.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Try connecting again. And again. Try to watch a movie, remember you only watch movies that stream online, go back to your computer and try to connect again.

If it doesn't come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then pack up your laptop and head for an internet cafe.

Stage 4 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Shocked disbelief, followed by a thorough inspection of your network settings, DSL modem, router, Wi-Fi configuration and the state of local radio interference fields. Then try the neighbor's Wi-Fi trick. Then stand and glare at your modem for a while.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Try connecting again. And again. Go down to watch a movie, remember you only watch movies that stream online, go back up and try to connect again.

If it doesn't come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then pack up your main computer and monitor and head to a hotel that offers reliable internet access.

Stage 5 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Get up on the roof and point your homemade Wi-Fi antenna at the library 15 blocks over. If that doesn't work, hook your cellular modem up to your laptop. If that doesn't work, pull out your old 56K modem and log into the dialup service you pay for every month just in case something like this happens.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Write a long, involved blog post about how your ISP is costing you time, money and/or effort because of its incompetence.

If it doesn't come back in an hour: Call your service provider and fire them. If there aren't any other DSL providers in your area, move.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to file this essay from an internet cafe.

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