photo: Pexel.com

This letter is long overdue. In fact, as I lie down to write it — because, true fact: um, all of my “best work” gets done on my phone in bed long after no one is asking me for the 45th time where her Chromebook charger ran off to — all I can think to myself is, why didn’t I buy stock in Lenovo or write this letter sooner?

I mean, it’s not like I don’t have loads of free time on my hands, especially since that Poppins woman fell from the sky, followed by some magic cleaning fairies. Not sure what the PC term is these days but they are amazing … whoever sent them and the umbrella woman, it goes without saying, I’m forever in your favor because this thank you, this long overdue, now I lay me (and that quarrelsome Chromebook charger) down to sleep would never have otherwise made it into your hands, dear reader. These things I know. For the record, I feel no shame in confessing that I took both delight and pleasure in the sheer idiocy of composing this … (why should today be any different, I suppose).

Dear Internet,

How can I begin to thank you enough? Or perhaps more specifically what, in a bulleted, detailed fashion can I thank you for? You are to thank. Not you alone, of course. You had a lot of help along the way … but truly, I feel you’ve been more than instrumental, emphasis on the mental part, in making me the woman I am today. And that is why I say a silent shout out each and every time I…

  • Watch Lightning McQueen buffer at the speed of my grandmother’s it-never-went-above-30 Buick. My toddler has definitely, if not learned patience, expanded his vocal range (think high falsetto) and given the neighbors an unforgettable free concert each and pretty much every waking hour of the day.
  • Have a new reason to overcome my lifelong battle with dyscalculia. How many combinations of 1891018 can one person enter into “network password” until someone (ahem, younger daughter) quietly removes the remote from her grasp and “handles the situation”? A lot. The answer is a lot.
  • Almost decapitate myself on this very long blue cable cord that hubby has snaked around the house like a booby trap, connecting some cryptic box in a room far, far away to our television. It’s also been known to slither out an upstairs window, down a drain pipe, and back into a downstairs window, much to the amusement and concern I’m sure of many a passerby, ready to connect when our Internet improves … never.
  • Am on the phone with the pediatrician (they love me over there) and am basically landlined in either the living room or kitchen, relaying another tale of ‘my toddler fell off the couch, the chair, the table … you get the idea. Doctor’s Pediatrics gets an earful and my sympathies for every time the poor receptionist asks, “And what can I do for you today, Kirschner?”
  • Lodge my entire arm, phone in hand, up the chimney in search of some nefarious network, dial up’s diabolical twin, Santa? All I want for Christmas is a better Internet provider (like finding a camel in the North Pole, I know).
  • Think I can’t do this one more day after trying and retrying to get that stupid red circle with the % spiraling off Minnie Driver’s face, just at that pivotal moment when she takes her hands from the wheel (watch Season 2 of “Modern Love” if you haven’t yet). I know, too much time on my hands.
  • Would have to schlep Thing One and Thing Two during that rejuvenating year of togetherness-slash-homeschooling we all knew and loved to Starbucks, the Wilton Library parking lot, a friend of a friend’s house because who’s your daddy hotspot from the district worked wonders but not so much in a house with plaster walls when both girls were vying for the love.
  • Got in a fit of hysteria with my hubby over the (I think I said) lack of supportive technology in the home? After our younger daughter’s Cider Mill closing house ended with Mr. Gallo giving her a shout-out that went something like, “… and Sonja, I know if we could hear you, you’d probably tell us … ” because she was glitching so much.
  • Explain something in vivid detail, usually to my mother and being the no comma of a woman I am, (yes I’m aware I used one there), finally get to the end of my woe-begotten tale of trauma only to have her say, “You lost me at: ‘This morning … “
  • It’s stormy, rainy, overcast, a squirrel pisses, a leaf falls, someone mentions the “don’t say it in the house, lest a coven of witches and series of natural or unnatural disasters might follow suit” … too late. It’s out, damned hotspot again and the Internet, too.
  • Try to write something, like a long-overdue letter, for example, and my phone suddenly becomes — I’m just going to come right out and say it — possessed … maybe by a coven of witches or Minnie Driver or Santa, (you never know) and the network fails, and bars, what bars?

And just when I think I’ve finally made it to the end of this (so satisfying) letter without getting disconnected from Google Docs for the (who’s counting) 13th time, just when I’m about done banging my head against those plaster walls and ready to finally sign, seal and deliver, I’m yours, baby, the whole helluva Hallmark card with some very compelling closing remarks because might as well have a big drive-it-home, Minnie send off … why not, the connection again is —

Columnist Lesley Kirschner grew up quiet, in the woods, and devoid of siblings so her hobbies quickly became reading, writing, and talking to inanimate objects. She also spent a considerable amount of time doing voice-overs for her dolls and watching too much daytime television–channel 3, sometimes channel 8, if the weather was good and the antenna wasn’t acting up. She was in attendance at school, graduated from a very much not notable college not worth mentioning, and was transplanted to Wilton with her husband, Ambler Farm‘s Farmer Jonathan and their (baby makes) three children almost a decade ago. Although she never quite found her calling in life, other than perhaps the doll voice-overs, which in hindsight were eerily convincing, she’s happy to try her hand at writing and is thankful for the support and community she found on Facebook’s Buy Nothing Wilton. Lesley realizes while this is all very exciting, she’s not winning a Pulitzer so she’ll wrap it up and be quiet. She’s had a lot of practice.