The power went out about 2:38 this morning.

Thankfully we have a gas stove which meant that I could still boil water for the coffee. Grinding the beans was a different matter. Time to throw on our boots and head out into the freezing rain to start the generator. Yes, we rely on that alternate power source to light and heat our home, but mostly I rely on it for the coffee.

Back in the house, waiting the required 4 minutes for the French press to steep, I called in the power outage. A call only made possible by the antiquated princess landline phone that we keep under our bed for times like this. What about your cell phone you might ask? Since there is no cell service to our little valley, the only way to call out is to use the princess phone or wi-fi calling, which we would totally do, except that separate from the power outage, the internet service went out as well.

Life in rural America can be technically challenging with limited access to high speed internet. Most of the people here still used dial-up when we built our home 15 years ago…think Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. Currently we have two different providers for our home. If one goes down, the other serves as backup. One is a DSL service which utilizes the phone line, the other is Elon Musk’s satellite based, lightening fast Starlink, still in beta test phase. Both internet services went out early this morning. According to the DSL service provider, the internet might be up and running by late this evening. The satellite service has been intermittent. Like I said, it’s still in beta and working out the kinks.

The internet requires power to the modem, which we have thanks to our propane-fueled generator. We have multiple propane tanks and keep them filled up so as to always have a backup ready. When necessary we head into town to fill them back up at our local gas station next to the cafe. Fifteen minutes round trip. Easy peasy. Except that the station doesn’t have a backup generator to provide power to the pumps to fill up our tanks. Which means that my husband and our neighbor are braving dicey roads, in the dark, to get to a larger town to fill the backup tanks. That is if there is any propane available.

Technology powers our world. We count on it to keep us informed, productive, and connected, and most of the time it doesn’t disappoint. But days like today remind me just how dependent we’ve become on our fancy, schmancy technology to hold our lives together. Which makes me wonder. Have we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security? Because from where I sit this evening, waiting for the power to come back on and the internet reliably up and running, it feels a lot more like duct tape.

That and a princess phone under the bed.