[NOTE: THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE IN NO WAY INTENDS TO EVOKE PITY, BUT RATHER RELAY A HUMOROUS, RELATABLE ACCOUNT OF ONE WOMAN’S STRUGGLE FOR INTERNET. IN OTHER WORDS, OUR BRIDGET HAS PLUCKED HERSELF UP, EATEN CAKE AND DECIDED IT’S RATHER FUNNY, NOW (NOT THEN). THIS IS FOR YOU, DANA.]
Once there was a girl named Bridget Jones*, who sometimes is a bit of a klutz, a Calamity Jane or more often than not, tends to have stress-induced freak-outs.
It started simply enough, with a harmless puddle. A puddle that was soon enough in her shoes after a wayward bus splashed her on the walk to the office. We don’t need to talk about what happened in said office except that she arrived with soggy socks and exited with a mountain of frustration and slightly soggy socks. The only thing putting a spring in poor Bridget’s step was getting to talk to her charming, darling Mark Darcy* after work, out of the country on some important, pressing work* we are sure, because he is important, and charming and cute and….oh wait, where were we?
Right, Bridget bumbled her way home, fighting traffic, sweeping into the house to log onto Skype (after all, Bridget works in media, and Skype is free). Two minutes into a long-awaited conversation in which Mr. Darcy was of course, darling and charming, the connection goes dead. Bridget waits for Mark to reset the connection and call back. Nothing. Well he is a foreign land, give him a moment, she reasoned. She starts to kill time on Facebook and then realizes it is her Internet that is the problem, not the charming, darling man’s. She runs into the other room, pushing aside the paint cans and paint rollers (sometimes Bridget is well intentioned, but rarely finishes her hair-brained schemes, in this instance, the room she half painted resulting in a half blue, half gray guestroom) to reveal a modem blinking helplessly as it drowned into an Internetless abyss. Bridget, trying to maintain composure in light of this disappointing start, employs her IT where how and unplugs, replugs, unplugs, replugs, prods, says please nicely, clicks computer mouse, double clicks mouse, left clicks mouse, unplugs again, watches blinking red light, watches blinking red light, starts to plead, prods HARDER, gently slaps, slaps HARD, starts calling the modem names including “bugger” and “wanker”, hits, hits again, picks up, thinks about throwing against wall, HITS HARDER, starts to call names at MUCH LOUDER DECIBEL LEVEL, WHY WON’T YOU WORK WHEN I NEED YOU? YOU PIECE OF……
Mountain of frustration, soggy socks, puddles, no charming man at home- all come crumbling down and our Bridget, our stressed out Bridget collapses sobbing on top the friggin’ traitor of a modem, fat mascara-laden tears hitting the paint tarp, which luckily is still wet enough to get paint on her pants. Thirty minutes of ugly cry (you know the ugly cry, not the dainty, a tear or two, sniffle, but snot, mascara, headache resulting cry) later, Bridget realizes there is only one thing she can do, the only thing a woman can do to pick herself back up, what every strong, competent woman does when her composure has cracked. Crawling out of the guest room to the kitchen, Bridget reaches into the freezer, grabs the Thin Mint ice cream tub and the closest utensil available- in this case a butter knife, and uses it to shovel the ice cream into her mouth for the next hour while watching Ryan Reynolds in “The Proposal” and then finishing off the carton by licking the inside of it. That’s right, what every strong, competent woman would do, use a butter knife to polish off the tub. I am woman, hear me eat.
* Kate Calamusa changed her name to protect her privacy in this tale… oh, drat.
* Also known as the charming, darling Mr. Calamusa
* Or in Haiti all of February working
