It is a big letdown to get inside a restaurant that claims
to have free wifi, where in fact I have used the free wifi,… and it’s not
working. I am not sure I believe that…
really? What is wrong with it….. why does wifi just fail? What are they trying
to prove? No. I really do not believe
them. This is at a Denny’s where I have
used the free wifi on many occasions in the recent past. This is also the case, very consistently, at
the McDonald’s nearest my home. I no longer
go to that McDonald’s for anything, because every time I have tried to get on
their “free wifi” it just plain does not work.
If I am going to drive all the way to the next McDonald’s I may as well
go to the library, it’s almost the same distance from my home, wifi is free at
the library, and I can spend all day there online for free. (Well, of course I pay taxes to that
particular library district, so it’s not totally free, but look at your
property tax statement – I bet you pay less than $20 a year for the public
library.)
What I am getting at, though, is that I go to a café almost
every day, and their free wifi is ALWAYS working. How can that be? McDonald’s and Denny’s, who both advertise
“free wifi” fail consistently, but an independent café has wifi that never
fails.
I came to Denny’s today to use the free wifi, while I wait
for my lunch date, who will not be here for more than an hour. So, I am here with nothing to do but write a
blog about the problems of not having Internet at home…. And, NO, I do not have a smart phone, or
whatever people are using to access the Internet at the merest whim. Believe me, after having Internet access in
the palm of my hand for 3 or 4 years, it is not easy to be without it entirely
at home. That is a large portion of the
day…. No longer can I look up some trivial information on the spur of the
moment. It changes the way I
think…. I shrug off a great many
questions. I have no GPS, not that that
is exactly a challenge for someone who can read a map. No Pinterest, no Facebook, no Google,
nothing,… “no Internet” being literal and complete. There are many frustrations that come along
with that.
At my house there is no landline telephone, no Internet or
wifi, and no “live” television either.
When I put live in quotation marks I mean that there is no signal, of
any kind, coming into my home: no cable, no satellite, and I have no
antenna. In the last few days I have
also learned that they are now making most televisions with no tuner –that
means that having an antenna may not do you any good, if your television does
not have a tuner to bring in the signal.
One way or another the powers that be are bound and determined to force
us to pay for television. My father, a
tv “head”, is rolling in his grave: television is supposed to be FREE! But I digress….
In order to get on the Internet I must get dressed and drive
away from my house to the library or to the café, or any other establishment
that provides free wifi. The library
closest to my home is great, offering rooms with doors and thus a “private
office”, although that room is not soundproof; you can hear the people in the
rooms on either side of you, and anyone outside the room (usually children too
young to understand that the library requires quiet). For example, there is a woman who uses one of
these library rooms to make a phone call, about once a week….apparently a very
distressing phone call, as she cries, sobbing loudly, talking through her tears
–it is more than a little disconcerting if you are in the next door room. Others hold meetings in these rooms, and they
are not quiet about it. Quite a few of
us trek to the library and set up our “office” for hours at a time.
The café I go to is about 1.75 miles from my house. The most convenient, warm, dry, safe place to
use free wifi. They will allow a person
to occupy a booth all day long, so long as you do not try to do that every day
of the week. I usually have something
else to do, during my period of unemployment, at least a couple of days of the
week. And, for those of you who may not
know it: the Internet gets old and boring after a couple of weeks of being
online all day long. I know this because
I once had a job where there was not enough work to keep me busy all day long,
yet I had to be there all day long; so the company owner told me that I could
do “anything” I wanted to occupy myself.
I could read a book, play solitaire, do crafts, or “play” on the
Internet –all day long! It does get
old. Mind you, I am job hunting, which
–these days – is best done on the Internet.
One can spend the better part of the day applying for jobs on various
websites. I read tutorials, and watch
videos, and visit LinkedIn, all in an effort to find a job, learn more about
finding a job, increase knowledge of skills I already possess…whatever is
“free” with that Internet connection.
When I get tired of job hunting and filling out
applications, etc. on the Internet I go to social media and “visit” with my
friends and relatives. This is my
primary contact with other people.
So you can understand that it is inconvenient to not have
Internet at home……. the gasoline for the
drive across town (which I find a chore and hey: my car guzzles gasoline!) or
the cost of a cup of coffee or tea or water at the café…. It’s a small price to
pay for “free” wifi. And it is a huge
disappointment to plan on using the “free” wifi
in a specific place, only to find out that it is “out of order”.
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