The Great Router Rebellion

The call came, as it always did, precisely when I was trying to meet a deadline. "It's gone!" my mother shrieked, her voice a symphony of panic. "The internet! It's vanished! Just... poof! One minute I'm watching a documentary about competitive knitting, the next it's black!"

I sighed, imagining the tiny, unassuming box that held her digital world hostage. "Okay, Mom, deep breaths. Can you just restart the router?" I asked, my voice practiced calm.

A dramatic pause. "Restart it? Like, turn it off and on again?" she whispered, as if the router itself might overhear and be offended.

"Exactly!" I affirmed, perhaps a little too eagerly.

"But what if it's sleeping?" she countered, her tone conspiratorial. "I don't want to wake it up on the wrong foot. It's usually so good to me, always giving me my knitting videos and telling me about the weather."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Mom, it's a machine. It doesn't have feet, or feelings, or a favorite brand of artisanal yarn."

"That's what you think! Remember when the toaster started burning everything after I yelled at it for dropping crumbs? These things have memories!"

Resisting the urge to remind her that the toaster had been unplugged for a week, I gave more specific instructions. "Just unplug it from the wall, wait ten seconds, then plug it back in."

A minute later, her voice returned, hushed. "Okay, it's unplugged. It looks so… vulnerable without its little lights, just sitting there, helpless."

"Good, now plug it back in."

Suddenly, a gasp. "Oh, heavens! It's glowing again! And it's humming a different tune! I think I've angered it!" Then, a beat later, a whoop of triumph. "Wait... the laptop! It's back! The internet! It's alive! Oh, darling! You're a magician!"

I hung up, chuckling. My magical powers, it seemed, extended only to explaining basic troubleshooting steps to someone who believed inanimate objects had sentient thoughts. And possibly a slight grudge. But hey, at least the knitting documentary was safe.