Photos A tipping point in life has officially happened: I would rather be without power than without

Written: June 5, 2026

Photos
A tipping point in life has officially happened: I would rather be without power than without internet.

Power? I can figure out power. I can make power. Half the devices in my house are basically little charged-up survival bricks, and worst case, I can sit in the car like a pioneer with USB ports.

But no internet? That is instant exile.

Suddenly every customer service option vanishes. No app. No chat. No account portal. No "help center." No actual human to call. Boom -- we are back 30 years, except this time I don't have a beeper, a phone book, or a dozen important phone numbers memorized.

So here is my new life advice: do not bundle your services. In fact, get your services as far away from each other as possible. Separate companies. Separate wires. Separate curses.

Near as I can tell, based on one customer service person's little slip of the tongue, an underground node flooded. And honestly? I believe it. Seeing how nobody seems to think about rainwater runoff before they start scraping every flat wooded area into fake luxury hillsides, I can absolutely picture some brand-new McMansion hamlet redirecting water directly into the one magic internet box that holds civilization together.

One wet node, and suddenly I'm living in 1994, but with none of the useful parts.
A tipping point in life has officially happened: I would rather be without power than without internet.
Power? I can figure out power. I can make power. Half the devices in my house are basically little charged-up survival bricks, and worst case, I can sit in the car like a pioneer with USB ports.
But no internet? That is instant exile.
Suddenly every customer service option vanishes. No app. No chat. No account portal. No "help center." No actual human to call. Boom -- we are back 30 years, except this time I don't have a beeper, a phone book, or a dozen important phone numbers memorized.
So here is my new life advice: do not bundle your services. In fact, get your services as far away from each other as possible. Separate companies. Separate wires. Separate curses.
Near as I can tell, based on one customer service person's little slip of the tongue, an underground node flooded. And honestly? I believe it. Seeing how nobody seems to think about rainwater runoff before they start scraping every flat wooded area into fake luxury hillsides, I can absolutely picture some brand-new McMansion hamlet redirecting water directly into the one magic internet box that holds civilization together.
One wet node, and suddenly I'm living in 1994, but with none of the useful parts.