The Dog Ate my Homework

Everyone is familiar with that old chestnut. Unfortunately, I re-wrote it—The Dog ate the Olympic Games. And we don't even have a dog.

I  had been looking forward to the Olympics and to seeing the wonderful background  shots of England. We watched the opening ceremonies on Friday—  a little odd, but I am not writing as a media critic. We were expecting house guests on Sunday, so I was busy making preparations. I noticed my computer had lost touch with the server, but thought it was just a temporary deal—you know, un-plug everything, count to thirty and plug everything back in, so I wasn't concerned. I stole half an hour in between preparations to watch TV and with all respect to water polo and to Montenegro, the game between the USA and Montenegro wasn't at the top of my must-see list. Suddenly we lost the picture. There was an error message, and the somewhat misleading promise to be back soon.

Cousins and second cousins arrived to greet our guests, there was dinner and talk and noise . . . but no television picture. When the kids were in bed I called Comcast, who, using their big brother equipment told me I was the only person in the neighborhood who was a big black blob, and the technician could be with me on Tuesday. I asked what would make me the only person without access to water polo, and they suggested that perhaps something had nibbled my cable. We had previously had trouble with squirrels destroying a cable and a particularly nasty black squirrel had made a meal out of a basket hanging on the fence, so he was my # 1 suspect. But when the technician hauled up the cable which passed under my fence, across a few inches of my neighbor's yard and up the pole, there it was—an area of gnawed and mangled orange cable. These are new neighbors behind me and I recalled having a dog growl at me one day when I was weeding back there. Problem solved and my guests were able to spend their last evening watching the highlights of the games.

Since the canine had destroyed my internet access, I was unable to acknowledge my daughter's birthday, although we celebrated it (with more dinner and talk and noise.) So happy birthday, Kate, and thanks for all the work you and your family do to make life easier for us.