Although I love where I live, I pay for that pleasure by enduring the sluggish, frustrating, erratic dial-up connection that is my only choice for this little backwoods hamlet/village/wide-spot-inna-road. My very nice ISP has given me a free Accelerator that usually does a remarkable job of speeding up things but the operative word here is "usually." When it ain't workin', folks, dial-up truly sucks.I've made jokes about the dial-up connection being hamster-powered. That's so I can laugh on the outside while crying on the inside, don'cha know. I was thinking the Accelerator was like letting the hamsters drink lots of that Red Bull energy drink so they'd run faster and longer in their little spinning wheels. So why the all too plentiful bouts of sluggishness? It was a puzzle, a mystery, a conundrum. Until I found Elliot on his lunch break.
That's Elliot in the above photo. And that's what the hamsters have been eating between cans of energy drink. Glug, glug Red Bull. Zoom-zoom connection. Munch, munch cookie. Plod, plod connection. Coincidence? I think not. (In the interests of accuracy, I need to point out "zoom-zoom," as applied to dial-up, is a grossly misleading description but it makes me feel better.)
I tried to talk to Elliot about the virtues of healthier food but he's not listening to me. Apparently, cookies are in their union contract. And nap breaks. And free psychiatric care when people like me traumatize them with dire tales of excess calories and clogged arteries.
It could have been worse. Elliot could have been selfish about it and refused to share his cookies with me. Not only did he let me have some, he promised to try to find the recipe. Right after his nap. I'll try not to disturb him with my screaming.
