Cut off from the world.

I was recently on vacation out of the country with my family. Now when I say “out of the country”, I mean just oh-so-barely out of the country, one city block into Canada, at Niagara falls. So, even though I could clearly see the home shores of the U.S.A. I had to turn off my phone. You see, once you cross the bridge, you are now in International Roaming Land. In this mythical territory, your phone company gets to charge you astronomical rates for calls and especially data. To make things even better, mere mortals would not even be capable of interpreting the rates from the Cellular Carrier’s website.

I had no idea how plugged into the Internet I was until I suddenly found myself cut off. I was standing at the railing, looking out at the majesty and hearing the roar of the falls, a wonder of the natural world. I COULD NOT TWEET. The online universe could not read my insights on life and the world the very moment I thought them.

I could not get Facebook updates as they happened. I missed out on the poignant moment of discovering that an old high school friend, with whom I have not spoken in almost thirty years, had purchased a new washer/dryer combo.

I could neither send nor receive Emails, missing out on the opportunity to get the untold millions of dollars from that exiled Nigerian prince who needed my bank information. (Psst.. upcoming blog subject)

I could not get online to watch week-old episodes of “The Daily Show” instead of turning my head to see one fifth of the world’s fresh water pouring over a drop of 180 feet in one the world’s most spectacular sights.

I could not pull my phone out of my pocket to call one of my co-workers to say, “Dude! You are at work and I’m on a boat, wearing a bright blue slicker and getting soaked.”

I was unconnected, isolated from the world and confronted with the fact that I was forced to be IN the world. I was thrown together with my family and coerced by my circumstances to share our common experience. We spent our days in awe and wonder and in result of that, talked to each other! We shared our trip and had one of the best vacations we had ever done as a family. We spent every day seeing new things, having fun and meeting new people.

At the end of each day, we retired to our hotel room, exhausted and satisfied with what we had seen and done, ready to wake up and have yet another day tomorrow that was even more exciting. With teeth brushed and PJs on, the family snuggled down into the comfort of our… HEY WAIT!

I forgot we had free Wi-Fi in the hotel.

The room settled into its nightly silence, interrupted only by the hum of the laptop fans. I learned on Facebook that my former Kindergarten classmate played tennis today.