It’s Tuesday morning and our internet is down, so it’s quiet.

Too quiet.

Because I work at home and there is no one else around but our two dogs and three cats, you would expect it to be quiet. But this is a different sort of quiet.

It’s an “OH MY GOD, THE INTERNET IS DOWN AND I AM COMPLETELY CUT OFF FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD. WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME? HOW WILL I SURVIVE? I DIDN’T STAY UP FOR THE REST OF THE CARDINALS GAME. HOW WILL I EVER FIND OUT WHO WON? HOW CAN I GO ON?” kind of quiet.

When I first noticed that our internet was down, I did what I always do. I walked over to the cabinet where we keep our internet — I want to say carburetor — and rebooted it.

The way you reboot your computer’s carburetor is to take a paper clip and stick into the little reset hole on the back. I know this because the  people who provide  our internet service once told  me that’s what I should do.

I don’t know, though. It seems to me that with all the advances that continue to be made with technology — and 193,033 have been made since you started reading this — you would think there would  be a better way to reboot your computer carburetor.

The “stick a paper clip in it” method is sort of like “jiggle the handle” method for fixing a toilet.

For the record, I do know that the computer thing I rebooted is not called the carburetor. It’s called the modem. Or, maybe it’s the router. It really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I stuck a paper clip in it and I still don’t have internet service.

I called my wife at work to see if the world as we know it still existed. She said it did. She also told me that she had heard that the people who provide our internet service were having problems.

“So it’s not us?” I asked.

“No,” my wife said.

“Whew,” I said.

I decided that rather than freak out about not having internet service I would get something done, but then I looked around our house and realized there was so much that needed to be done that it was pointless to begin.

I decided to go online and check out the Cardinals score but realized I couldn’t because, as I think I have pointed out, THERE WAS NO INTERNET SERIVCE.

So I sat at my desk for a while. I tried my computer again, and our internet worked. Then it stopped again.

Our internet service was off and on for the next few hours. When I saw the warning thing on the internet symbol on my computer screen go away, I quickly went online. Then, just as I was ready to do some serious internet screwing around, it stopped working.

It was a frightening experience.

I remember when I was a kid that sometimes our TV would stop working. When that happened, there were two solutions. The first solution was to  turn the TV off and then turn it back on. If that didn’t work, you had to call a TV guy and he, if he couldn’t fix it in your home, he  would have to take it to “the shop.”

That’s right, young people. There used to be TV shops.

When I was a kid, if I didn’t have TV, I felt there was no reason to live. Then my parents would tell me about how they grew up without TV or radio.

“And we always found something to do,” they said.

Thinking about what my parents said all those years ago has inspired me. I’ve decided to not let the internet define my life. Instead, I’m going to watch TV.

I just hope the cable’s not out.