Well, not really, it’s hardly worth that – but doesn’t it kill you when one little issue in your daily life can so fully absorb you brain you become a worthless hulk of anxiety for days at a time?

What? It never happens to you? Liar!

Okay, maybe you’re telling the truth, but it happens to me. Right now – at a time when I should be on cloud nine because Ether is finished and all I have to do is edit and write a query, then send it out – at a time when I should be cruising along and having no other worries than picking which idea becomes the next novel – I can’t.

My internet connection at home isn’t working. I have cable internet, and use a Linksys wireless cable gateway that I own, because I like controlling privacy and didn’t want to rent the equipment from the cable company and have no control over it. And for the past 3+ years, it’s been working just fine. There was one time I had issues, but that turned out to be the cable coming to my house, and the fact that a squirrel had eaten through it.

So now, as of last week, I can access the ‘net for about 20 seconds, then nothing. Then about ten minutes later, I get another 30 seconds of email/surfing, then nothing. A service request to the cable company got me nowhere because they say there’s nothing wrong. So if I want them to come fix it, since I own the router/modem, I’ll have to pay for the tech call. They don’t bother saying how much, because obviously they don’t know.

Several people have given me advice, none of which has been effective either due to my lack of understanding or the equipment really is crapping out. Although I have green lights everywhere, my wireless light does flicker when I have a computer on. It’s like the signal is coming OUT to my laptops – who tell me they have a signal – but when they send information to the router, it’s hiccupping.

I dunno. I’ve been going around and around with this all weekend, and came to the conclusion – thanks to some needed advice this morning – that I should buy a new router/modem and replace mine, see if that works, and if not – call the cable people because clearly it’s not my equipment. I can then send back the router/modem.

But the thing that gets me – what really has me tied up in little stress knots, is this lack of control. I’m not an internet addict, but I do like access to my email at home. I have friends I communicate to via the email and it makes me nuts having no communication with them. If this were me choosing not to log on, taking a break from the web or something, that’d be one thing. But it’s not MY choice – and fixing the issue is basically out of my control – and THAT makes me crazy!

Imagine if your car was in the garage, and you simply didn’t feel like taking it for a ride. That’s fine. But now say you DO want to take it out, and you can’t make it start. You have no idea what’s going on, it should start, but it won’t. You call someone for help, and they tell you there’s nothing wrong with your car, so you have to fix it yourself. Only you have no idea how!

Do you buy a new car, or pay someone to come fix it and charge you God knows how much, only to tell you that you have to buy a new car after all?

I can has valium now, plz? Kthnxbai.

Math makes my brain hurt, I admit.  But, like most of us, I do basically understand odds, or at least the concept behind them.

So when I read something that makes me go “Whaa?” I do a little research, so I don’t ask and look like an idiot. Only this time, my research made me to “WTF?” and now, at the risk of looking like said idiot, I’d like someone to explain this to me.

The estimated population of Planet Earth right now is, roughly, 6.6 Billion humans.

The definition of the word Quadrillion is “one billion million” (roughly Bill Gates net worth).

So, if a forensics lab is quoted in a newspaper article as saying “The odds of taking some random stranger’s DNA and having it match perfectly are 1 in 19 Quadrillion.”  that makes me wonder . . . This guy/gal is saying that the odds of finding another human with matching DNA are, technically, 1 in 19 million billion – only the population is 6.6 billion.

Isn’t this a bit over exaggerated?  Can’t he simply say “The DNA was a one hundred percent match.”  Why does he just suggest that, should the population increase by – well my brain hurts – but the population of Earth would have to increase exponentially until we simply didn’t fit here anymore, and THEN the odds might be 1 in 19.

For the love of crab apples – it sounds like one of those over-the-top writers who elaborates page after page about how the heaving-breasted woman’s perfume smelled, when a simple “she wore perfume” would suffice.

And by the way, there is no scientific evidence that no two fingerprints are alike – until the entire 6.6 billion people here have been fingerprinted, no one can make that claim.  Add to that the very poor ratings used in the US – an 8-point match – when other countries demand a bare minimum of a 20-point match before even coming close to IDing a fingerprint match – is appallingly Hollywood.

/strangely unrelated rant.

Yes, I have a pet peeve today.  It’s people who ASSUME. 

Yeah, we all know what you do when you assume, so I won’t repeat it here. But another thing you do when you assume is teeve me off!

So, the other day, I’m in the city and suffering from a severe low blood sugar. That happens, quite a bit actually, but rarely ever does it reach this depth. So by the time I dash in to a Seattle’s Best (because Starbucks was another two blocks and I couldn’t wait that long) I was seriously crashing. Thankfully the line had just cleared out, so I get to the counter, order a soy latte and an oatmeal raisen cookie and I tell the nice, but vacous girl behind the counter that I’m terribly sorry but I’m close to passing out and could she please hurry it along?

I was eyeing a package of jelly beans on the counter, but sugar is a last resort. I needed the cookie.

She’s typing up the order on her little register . . .for, like, ten minutes! Then tells me the total for my latte. She’d forgotten the cookie.  I reminded her, and yes – my tone was less than pleasant. That’s what happens when my blood sugar drops. I get short and sometimes mean. But I didn’t swear, or say anything rude.  So she’s back to the register, re-typing the whole order.  Another 10 minutes.

I inform her I’m dangerously close to passing out.  She goes to get the cookie.

I swear to you, she was gone five minutes. I couldn’t even see where she’d gone. So I ask the second cashier what in the HELL is taking so long, the cookies were in the case right there, and I’m seconds away from eating those jelly beans.

“She’s heating it up for you.”

I informed her I didn’t WANT my cookie hot, I wanted it IN MY BELLY!

“We assume all customers want the cookies hot, so we do that automatically.”

Well, yes, folks – this mild-mannered writer blew a gasket.

So I get my cookie, warm, and I’m desperately shoving it down my gullet waiting for my soy latte, which will sustain me properly.  But Oops, she forgot to tell the barista.

Fifteen minutes later, and very nearly a 911 call, I get my latte and she gave me back my money.

Bad enough, right?  But no, it doesn’t end there, this peeve I’m petting.  Monday morning I need to fill up the car before driving to work, and the pump register isn’t working, so instead of paying outside, I have to pump and then go inside to pay. I walk in, and immediately the woman behind the counter declares “Your phone number.”

Dazed (it was 6:00am and I was freezing) I tell her my number.

“No, that’s not right.”

“Um, yes, it is. I know my number,” says I.

She types it three more times. “No, it’s not.”

I asked her why in the name of all that’s holy does she even need my phone number? I just want to pay for my diesel and go to work.

“For your Safeway card,” she states blankly.

“Did I walk in here and say I had a Safeway card?” I ask, beginning to boil and hoping that shakes off the chill from the wind that tried to blow me to the ground while pumping. “I don’t USE a Safeway card! Not one time did you ASK me if I had a Safeway card!”

“I assumed you did. We assume everyone does.” was her reply.

And you’d think that’d be enough, right? That I’d get to work and meditate a little, and all would be well?

HA!  I get home that night, and my sister is opening her mail – there’s a letter in there from her health insurance.  She had knee surgery last week, a simple procedure, but it was the result of a fall she’d taken 8 years ago. She was walking along, and tripped, and landed hard on her knee.  It happens.

Her doctor asked what she’d done, she told her.  The surgeon asked how it happened, she told him.

So the insurance company mails her a form that declares:  We believe this accident to be the result of a Labor and Industries work related incident.  If that is NOT the case, you are required to fill out this five page form explaining how this is NOT a work related accident and mail it in immediately before we can process your claim.

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Asses.  All of them.

I feel better now, thanks.